FIRSCHEIN@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA (Oscar Firschein) (03/14/86)
Daniel Dennett has an interesting chapter, "Can Machines Think?" (pp. 121-145) in the collection, "How We Know," Michael Shafto (ed), Harper and Row 1985. Dennett feels that the Turing test has been misunderstood and misused: "It is a sad irony that Turing's proposal has had exactly the opposite effect on the discussion of that which he intended. Turing didn't design the test as a useful tool in scientific psychology, a method of confirming or disconfirming scientific theories or evaluating particular models of mental function: he designed it to be nothing more than a philosophical conversation-stopper. He proposed -- in the spirit of 'Put up or shut up!' -- a simple test for thinking that was surely strong enough to satisfy the sternest skeptic (or so he thought).... Alas, philosophers --amateur and professional -- have instead taken Turing's proposal as the pretext for just the sort of definitional haggling and interminable arguing about imaginary counterexamples he was hoping to squelch." His metaphor of the "Dennett test for being a great city" clarifies the role of the Turing test, and is worth reading. His conclusions are: (1) The Turing test in unadulterated, unrestricted form, as Turing presented it, is plenty strong if well used, (2) Cheapened versions of the Turing test are everywhere in the air. -------