trc (11/24/82)
It is true that the person in the box doesn't understand Chinese. However, the blind spot in the argument is obvious - the person is NOT alone in the box! There is a book of Chinese language knowledge in the box too! In order for this book to provide correct answers to questions in Chinese characters, it must contain information about the relationships of those characters. In order to truly pass the Turing test, the information must be of a level at least equivalent to that in a system that understands the meaning of those characters. Together with the information processing capabilities of a human (or a computer for that matter, since the rules are presumed to be formal ones), the SYSTEM can be claimed to be intelligent if it is able to pass the Turing test. As to looking at the hardware to determine if the system is intelligent, this sounds suspiciously like a code phrase for "if it doesn't look like the brain, it cant be intelligent". And if it is intended in a literal sense, it is worth noting that any piece of hardware can be simulated with a computer and an appropriate program - which is what Turing was getting at with his "Turing machine". Actually, the Turing test (as commonly conceived) might have one flaw - it relies upon human judgement of intelligence. However, human beings can be fooled. An intelligent alien, with alien concepts, but having a good grasp of Chinese, might still fail the test. A non-intelligent computer, with a tricky program, such as Eliza, might fool humans for a while into believing it is intelligent. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any straight-forward objective test for intelligence, so human judgement is the best alternative. The solution to this difficulty seems to be "the test of time". For as long as a system demonstrates intelligence, it will be given the benefit of the doubt. If it seems to fail the test, it will be tested extensively to make sure it was a true failure, not merely a mistake or mis-understanding. Actually, I believe that Turing may have said this, but did not emphasize it, believing it to be obvious. Does anyone have a copy of his original proposal handy? Tom Craver houti!trc