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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Bag the Turing test (was: Penrose and Searle)
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References: <3bu0gs$fff@sun4.bham.ac.uk> <jqbD0DG73.4uu@netcom.com> <D0GFxv.5zL@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <D0K5EA.CEv@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 22:36:55 GMT
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In article <D0K5EA.CEv@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>>Regardless, I do agree that stress on "how" is a mistake. Hans Moravec
>>argued this very convincingly in terms of optimization.
>
>In any case, the emphasis on how is no mistake, although Aaron
>Sloman and I may be the only people here who believe this.

Where do you come up with these things?  Daryl McCullough posted a 
suggested TT which allowed certain of the participants to examine the 
program code.  I've always been interested in the "how" of AI, and
wanted to examine the architecture of any successful TT-passer; and
I think many others would want to do the same.

>The TT defense is shaping up nicely.  How programs work is a
>mistake (only their I/O matters?), and let's see...
>
>  The whole point of the TT is to determine if the computer is human.
>
>  The people who say they wouldn't be convinced by a computer that
>  passes the Turing Test are just not being honest with themselves. 
>
>  Humans are ready enough to treat other members of their species as
>  less than human; why should we expect them to treat AIs any better?
>
>  What might be a test for the achievement of the above-described
>  goal-defintion of AI? One just pokes at machines; a mind can
>  be communicated with. Hence some sort of conversational test
>  seems appropriate.
>
>  Everything I know about you and almost else on the net has been
>  obtained solely by examining your texts.
>
>  why make the test harder than the one you use for humans? 
>
>  Searle doesn't understand what the Turing test is,
>  or what it's supposed to prove.  It's when Searle uses the phrase "the
>  Turing test for Chinese" that he betrays his limited understanding.
>
>  Pardon me for being so thick, but if they have identical behavior,
>  then how do you know which one is conscious? 
>
>  It does not need to be useful in other ways.  Just having a test is
>  purpose enough for having a TT.
>
>  I think your posting really amounts to an objection to the use of
>  the TT in the philosophy of AI.  In that, I agree with you.  It is
>  my reading of Turing that he never proposed it for that role.  The
>  test remains a natural and obvious pragmatic test of a significant
>  achievement in AI, and retains its usefulness in that role.
>
>  Maybe those who are anti-TT [in a manner of speaking] are trying to
>  question the relativity of TT. I don't see much of a problem here
>  that statistical testing could not solve.
>
>  Since we do not know how to judge presence of consciousnes except by
>  giving a TT, the above is meaningless.
>
>  Passing a verbal TT is what is hard. And inability to pass it does
>  not exclude consciousness, see Helen Keller. Passing it OTOH is
>  basically how we decide about other people's consciousness.
>
>  ... empty claims that TT is not enough without saying what more is
>  required are suspect.
>
>There's enough here to show that the TT defense takes several forms.
>Sometimes, the TT is just said to be useful.  Sometimes, defenders
>are just countering what they see as bad arguments against the TT.
>(I count those who do that as defenders, but not if they also give
>arguments against the TT or say such things as "that's a bad argument,
>but it would be better if you..." or "although I agree with your
>conclusion, your argument is totally bogus".)

What is totally bogus is your conflation of various statements about the 
TT into a creature you call "the TT defense".  I am disappointed and
offended to find my own words quoted as building block in this fantasy.

You've put together quotes from people who've strongly argued against
the TT (me), people who accept it only as an interesting milestone (Neil),
people who seem to take it as the best way we have of defining intelligence
(Andrzej?), people who think it tests just what we want to test but
have suggested radical refinements in it, such as examining source code
(Daryl), and people who see nothing wrong with it at all (Mark Hubey).

Your comment that "the TT defense takes several forms" is amazingly
disingenuous.  Yeah, these statements are pretty various-- because
there is no such thing as "the" TT defense.

>But a frequent theme is this: we in effect use the TT to decide about
>other humans, and it's just prejudice (or, as Harnad says, arbitrary)
>to do anything different for machines.  Suggestions that anything
>else (e.g. how it works -- Andrez, please note that I don't say
>"how it looks") might matter are attacked.

Why do you have to make everything out to be a conspiracy?  First you
lump together everyone who argues with you into "TT-defenders" (they're not), 
then you talk about "a frequent theme", as if all of those people frequently
indulged this notion (some of them do, others have criticized it),
and characterize their postings as "attacks" (as if you never criticized
anyone on the net).

>This line is taken even by some of those, such as Harnad, who
>also argue against the TT.  (Harnad thinks Searle's arguments
>work for TT-passers, but not for TTT-passers.)

Which means he *doesn't* follow your "line"-- he doesn't believe that 
"we in effect use the TT to decide about other humans".

>It's at least very rare for anyone on the "pro-AI" side to offer
>arguments or other weapons aginst this line.  (So I end up siding
>w/ people whose overall conclusions about AI I typically disagree
>with.)
>
>Other defenses of the TT often function to protect the line by
>attacking it's critics.  

Right, Jeff, it's all a conspiracy.  When I attack the TT, it's *really*
a defense of the TT and an attack on you.  When others agree with my
criticisms of the TT, or explicitly deny that the TT is a definition of
intelligence, or restrict its role in AI, or propose non-behavioral tests,
they are of course defending the TT and attacking you.  
