From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!ames!lll-winken!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!psinntp!psinntp!scylla!daryl Wed Apr 22 12:04:02 EDT 1992
Article 5144 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!ames!lll-winken!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!psinntp!psinntp!scylla!daryl
>From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Challenge
Message-ID: <1992Apr16.134520.6283@oracorp.com>
Date: 16 Apr 92 13:45:20 GMT
Organization: ORA Corporation
Lines: 28

markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:

>>(NB my position is that the CR fails to show the impossibility
>>of strong ai but that it's useful nonetheless, in part because
>>it shows we should question the Turing Test.)

> If you want a philosophical objection to the Turing Test I don't see
> how you can beat the roomful of monkeys.

Why do you say that? A room full of monkeys will, with very high
probability, not pass the Turing Test. Of course, there is the tiny
probability that it will pass, but that is not a problem specifically
for the Turing Test; *any* physically performable test has a nonzero
probability of giving the wrong answer (unless it is a test that, by
definition, everything passes, or nothing passes). That might raise
philosophical problems with empirical science, in general, but it
doesn't raise problems for the Turing Test in particular.

On the other hand, if there were a convincing argument that the CR was
possible and that it was incapable of understanding, then that would
really raise problems for the Turing Test, since it would suggest that
there are two classes of beings, conscious beings and pseudo-conscious
beings, that could not be distinguished by their behavior (even
statistically).

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY


