The Trouble with the Turing Test
www.thenewatlantis.com
Why the Turing Test hasn't been passed yet—and why it's a bad measure of intelligence anyway

Computer pioneer Alan Turing’s remarks in 1950 on the question, “Can machines think?” were misquoted, misinterpreted and morphed into the so-called “Turing Test”. The modern version says if you can’t tell the difference between communicating with a machine and a human, the machine is intelligent. What Turing actually said was that by the year 2000 people would be using words like “thinking” and “intelligent” to describe computers, because interacting with them would be so similar to interacting with people. Computer scientists do not sit down and say alrighty, let’s put this new software to the Turing Test - by Grabthar’s Hammer, it passed! We’ve achieved Artificial Intelligence!

  • deranger@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    I think the Chinese room argument published in 1980 gives a pretty convincing reason why the Turing test doesn’t demonstrate intelligence.

    The thought experiment starts by placing a computer that can perfectly converse in Chinese in one room, and a human that only knows English in another, with a door separating them. Chinese characters are written and placed on a piece of paper underneath the door, and the computer can reply fluently, slipping the reply underneath the door. The human is then given English instructions which replicate the instructions and function of the computer program to converse in Chinese. The human follows the instructions and the two rooms can perfectly communicate in Chinese, but the human still does not actually understand the characters, merely following instructions to converse. Searle states that both the computer and human are doing identical tasks, following instructions without truly understanding or “thinking”.

    Searle asserts that there is no essential difference between the roles of the computer and the human in the experiment. Each simply follows a program, step-by-step, producing behavior that makes them appear to understand. However, the human would not be able to understand the conversation. Therefore, he argues, it follows that the computer would not be able to understand the conversation either.

    • eggymachus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      01·
      6 days ago

      That just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of levels. Neither the computer nor the human understands Chinese. Both the programs do, however.