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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Bag the Turing test (was: Penrose and Searle)
Message-ID: <D00167.91w@spss.com>
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References: <CzFr3J.990@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <CzH78F.4Eq@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <CzqHIB.1nA@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <1994Nov24.135351.25743@unix.brighton.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 22:30:06 GMT
Lines: 89

In article <1994Nov24.135351.25743@unix.brighton.ac.uk>,
shute <mjs14@unix.brighton.ac.uk> wrote:
>>pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>>>As someone who defended the TT in this forum, let me once again stress
>>>the rationale of this defence: better bird in hand than two in the bush.
>
>jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>Now, what is the argument for the TT?  That if we can't show it's
>>wrong, we should treat it as right?  Why not say we don't yet know
>>one way or the other?  After all, it's not like we're going have
>>to TT-passers ready tomorrow.  Why the rush?  Why does it *matter*
>>that we have this bird in the hand right now?
>
>I am particularly fond of the Newton-Ralphson method.
>IMHO it illustrates a deeper lesson, far beyond its use as a technical tool.
>It says (to me anyway) that in design, you need to start somewhere. [...]
>
>The importance of the TT bird, IMO, is that it does give us *a* start.

IMHO it doesn't, nor was it intended to.  Turing, so far as I can see, 
proposed the test not as a definition of intelligence but as a purposeful
sidestepping of such definitions, and as a way of getting people to think
about the possibility of machine intelligence.  It does do that, but it is
useless in just about every other way.

It's about time I posted my 

Top eleven reasons the Turing Test should be thrown out

-- Its definition is hopelessly vague; c.a.p posters have used the term
for anything from teletype exchanges limited to 5 minutes, to any kind
of external behavior, to any kind of physical observable whatsoever,
to unobservable phenomena as well (e.g. "thinking").  Such a wide range 
of denotations does not amount to a "test" in any useful sense.

-- It does nothing to guide AI research.  AI does not proceed by 
throwing up candidates for the Turing Test, but by attempting to solve
particular practical problems, or by emulating biological intelligence.
The TT thus does no good within the field of AI.

-- It hasn't achieved consensus; if a machine "passed the Turing Test"
the people who already believe a machine can't think would only say 
"who cares?" anyway.  A test whose results have no uncontroversial reading
is no test.  The TT therefore does no good (or has failed) in preparing
people outside the field for the possibility of AI.  (For that matter it
isn't even universally accepted within the field; John McCarthy has
argued against it in this forum, for instance.)

-- It's fatally subjective.  There is no demonstration that results
are reproducible, even with a single observer.  Calling it a "test" at 
all gives it in fact a pseudo-scientific air it does not deserve; 
far from eliminating human prejudice, it elevates it into the arbiter
of objective fact.

-- It's easy to fool.  Turing seemed to think that people will not on
the whole accept "intelligence" in machines.  On the contrary, many
people accept it all too readily, or even figure it's already been done.

-- Focussing on external behavior as it does, the TT encourages the notion
that only algorithmic structure, rather than any physical fact about 
human brains, produces intelligence.  That may be, but it should be a
matter for investigation, not an initial assumption.

-- It's biased toward language use, rather than any other demonstration
of intelligence: the ability to read a map, or fix a bicycle, or 
play a violin, for example.

-- If it worked at all, it would be because humans have an ability
to determine what is or is not "intelligence"; an ability which we
should examine to see where it comes from and how it works, not 
mindlessly take as an unanalyzable given.

-- Better definitions of intelligence exist; for instance, it can be 
analyzed as a combination of capacities to remember, to learn, to
reason, to use language, to create, to plan, to know a good deal about
the world, to execute everyday tasks.  

-- One of the central tasks of AI (and cognitive science in general) is to 
give us a complete theory of mind, which would include an explanation of 
intelligence and how to search for it.  Far from being necessary for AI,
the TT would be superseded by any successful AI (which would have to be
built on a theory of mind incorporating a far better explanation of
what intelligence is).

-- Not the least use of any theory is the counter-arguments that are 
raised against it, which are often useful for refining our understanding.
The counter-examples suggested by the Turing Test-- roomfuls of monkeys,
humongous lookup tables, Chinese Rooms-- are diverting, but shed little
light on what it takes to build an intelligent machine.
