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The Turing Test was a very clever way of describing an AI without having to get into dead end philosophical arguments about what is or isn't intelligence (Ants

The Turing Test was a very clever way of describing an AI without having to get into dead end philosophical arguments about what is or isn't intelligence (Ants have very complex social structure and engineering abilities - but are they intelligent?). Turing picked something uniquely human and used it as a baseline. Unfortunately, what we got is passing the cargo cult turing test, as described in the Chinese Room Experiment. I think what we all had hoped for, however, was HAL. What we are going to get is more and more iterations of cleverbot.

debacle 15y ago
The problem, of course, is that any heuristic based AI is going to be susceptible to some sort of Voigt-Kampf test which gives it away.
- excuse-me 15y ago
  Unless you modify the behaviour of the human population to make it more unthinking, repetitive and predicable. Then it becomes impossible to spot the replicants! LOL, frist post, l33t ......
code_scrapping 15y ago
I agree. The point is that the Turing tests grades the machines capability to mimic, pretend. It's an impressive feat, but that's not what we're looking for. We are trying to get better ways of gathering new informations, handling unforeseen circumstances, and that's what we're getting in the Hollywood block-busters. Not chat-bots as walexander mentioned. On the other hand they said: "The first is the ready availability of vast amounts of raw data — from video feeds to complete sound environments, and from casual conversations to technical documents on every conceivable subject. The second is the advent of sophisticated techniques for collecting, organizing, and processing this rich collection of data." While first is true, the second is as generic as it gets. This is a nice overview of the current (comercial) advances, but the title is hyped.
ErrantX 15y ago
I think the problem has arisen from a misunderstanding of what Turing was getting at in his paper. At first he talks about Chess (an example chosen, as we know, because it has a well defined rule set) and a computer imitating a Chess player. He makes the point that, to a human player, it may be difficult to determine between a human player and a computer imitator. Even though the computer is not AI or otherwise "intelligent" it could be mistaken, under the constraints of the test, as human. Then he sets up the more complex test with the questioning (i.e. "convince me you are a man"). The point there is much the same; at some point it is possible to construct a machine that, within the constraints of the test, is functionally "human". He never claims it as an ultimate test for AI. IMO the greater point he suggests, which always seems to get glossed over, is this: that at some level of complexity a computer will be able to pass a test (as yet undefined) in which it imitates complete human intelligence to such a degree it appears to be full AI. That could all be rambling... but that is my understanding of his point. Over the interim the Turing Test has gotten mixed around and confused to such a degree that this insight is forgotten.
- 3pt14159 15y ago
  The Turing test should introduce a completely unexpected set of questions. (double quotes for human, single for AI) "Hi" 'hi, how are you?' "Good. Do you know what we are doing today?" 'Yes, we are attempting to prove that I posses sentient intelligence' "Right. Would you like to prove that you are sentient?" 'Yes' "Excellent. I would like you to design a new five wheeled vehicle for me, can you do that?" 'Yes. Is autocad acceptable?' "Sure. Start with basics though, don't dive in, I'd like to see successful iterations and reasoning about design choices" Something like that. Otherwise it's all just BS breadth first search through other people's past conversations.
  - DannoHung 15y ago
    You don't want an AI, you want an artificial genius who can handle any task.
    - fusiongyro 15y ago
Tuna-Fish 15y ago
I have never actually understood the "chinese room experiment". As formulated in WP, the point is supposed to be that while the room is working, the man in it cannot understand Chinese, so similarly the computer cannot understand it. But isn't this completely pointless, as despite what the man and the computer can or cannot understand, the room or the program can? The man (or the computer) is just a cog in a larger system, and cannot be expected to understand the system, just as none of my individual neurons cannot understand English. > I think what we all had hoped for, however, was HAL. What we are going to get is more and more iterations of cleverbot. And what is the difference? When we can build a program that can parse natural language and use it to access information, it will open a whole new technological revolution.
- guccimane 15y ago
  Searle calls your objection the "systems reply", and his response can be found here (2a): http://www.iep.utm.edu/chineser/#H2 http://www.iep.utm.edu/chineser/#H2
  - Lockyy 15y ago
    And he completely misses the point of the argument. "There isn’t anything in the system that isn’t in him." This small sentence just completely shows his ignorance of virtual machines. Yes my tinyxp system is running within Ubuntu, that doesn't mean my Ubuntu system is a tinyxp system. “[it’s just ridiculous to say] that while [the] person doesn’t understand Chinese, somehow the conjunction of that person and bits of paper might” He is, yet again, falling back and just disregarding the argument. As I said before, he is arguing that because my processor cannot do maths would the aid of the rest of my computer it is ridiculous to assume that when combined properties might emerge. Sort of similar to how Sapience is an emergent property of our bodies really...
  - bermanoid 15y ago
    Pretty much everything Searle has ever written on the subject can be predicted by starting with the argument "but only humans can understand meaning!" and working from there. In part c of that link, he lays it out quite clearly: even if you manage to build a detailed working simulation of a human brain, even if you then insert it inside a human's head and hook it up in all the right ways, you still haven't "done the job", because a mere simulation of a brain can't have mental states or understand meaning. Because it's not a human brain. In other words, he's an idiot. Or at least he's so committed to being "right" on this issue that he's willing to play the dirty philosophy game of sneakily redefining words behind the scenes until he's right by default. But in any case, he's not talking about any practical or mesurable effect or difficulty related to AI. He's arguing that even if you built HAL, he wouldn't acknowledge it as intelligent, because his definition of "intelligent" can only be applied to humans.
Lockyy 15y ago
I dislike the Chinese room experiment. The argument that he doesn't understand Chinese is like arguing that the hardware itself isn't an AI. No it isn't it is the software that is the AI. It is the set of instructions that he is following that understands Chinese. The argument that the creator of the experiment used against this was that if you removed the pen and paper and had the man do it all in his head, then the man still doesn't understand, but he completely missed the point. In that case it just changes from the pen and paper + man that is the hardware to purely the man. The Chinese room argument against AI falls down when you remember that the man is only the hardware. He may be essential to the running of the software, but he is just as much the mind of the Chinese translator as my processor is the maths running through it.
Toenex 15y ago
I'm glad someone else thinks this too. I feel that the Turing test has largely been a diversion and I don't think Turing intended such a literal interpretation. The point I think Turing was making was that we must look beyond our human experience when we look for intelligence in other forms.
ma2rten 15y ago
I am graduate student in artificial intelligence. I think what we all had hoped for, however, was HAL. What we are going to get is more and more iterations of cleverbot. We are getting there. We really are. A lot of iterations further and cleverbot could actually act more human than HAL. If you'd asked me a few month ago I would said that AI is basically just applied statistics, which sometimes manages to look intelligent if you don't look close enough. I changed my mind. There is some quite recent research in Natural Language Processing/Information Retrieval which manages to blur the line between just statistics over words and really understanding what those words mean (if you define meaning as relations to other symbols).
- kubrickslair 15y ago
  As an ex graduate student in Natural Language Processing/ Machine Learning, I was curious what recent changes occurred that made you see things from a different perspective? I have not been keeping track of newer research, so would love to know.
  - ma2rten 15y ago
    Rereading my post it I realize it sounds like a big break though occurred in the last few month. That is not the case. I was basically talking about deep learning neural networks. Anyway, here a number of things that caused me to change my mind: 1. I saw this talk: http://videolectures.net/nips09_collobert_weston_dlnl/ http://videolectures.net/nips09_collobert_weston_dlnl/ this is their paper: http://ronan.collobert.com/pub/matos/2008_nlp_icml.pdf http://ronan.collobert.com/pub/matos/2008_nlp_icml.pdf but if you are interested in the bigger picture, I think you have to see the talk. 2. A saw this talk by Geoffrey Hinton about deep learning neural networks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyzOUbkUf3M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyzOUbkUf3M 3. I saw a talk and read some papers by these guys: http://www.gavagai.se/ethersource-technology.php http://www.gavagai.se/ethersource-technology.php It is not necessarily, that I believe in their approach, but it made rethink my idea of meaning. EDIT: this is also a cool paper in this regard http://nlp.stanford.edu/pubs/SocherLinNgManning_ICML2011.pdf http://nlp.stanford.edu/pubs/SocherLinNgManning_ICML2011.pdf
Craiggybear 15y ago
> Ants have very complex social structure and engineering abilities - but are they intelligent? They are differently enabled. Evolution gave them all they need to thrive and be successful. Intelligence is, in evolutionary terms, very expensive, hi-maintenance and often counter-productive. So is individuality. These things are not the natural end-product of an evolutionary process like they are assumed to be. In fact, its normally the exception rather than the rule. Simplicity (seldom complexity, except for a short while and in niche settings) is the end result of a perfected organism in harmony with its environment. You get what you need for the time frame in which you need it. After that, as soon as you don't need it so much, it will go. Like flight in birds. Dodo's didn't need it, lost it rapidly and then humans arrived. We killed them, tried to eat them and our technology (ships) brought vermin predators (rats and cats) to their world which they had no defence against -- and that was the end of them. Our `intelligence' didn't pan out too well for them. And they're just one example of this sort of thing. Its happening all the time. When you are sitting in the shattered and burned-out remains of your world (literally or metaphorically), intelligence looks overrated. The same will eventually, inevitably, happen to us. An AI, or our own avaricious greed and ambition, will probably finish us all off. Big brains, language and tool-making abilities are not necessarily the best or inevitable end outcomes in evolutionary processes. They happen because they need to. Then again, sometimes they don't, and that can pan out OK as well. When it does happen it also tends toward the self-limiting, as well. Just what you need and no more. The evolution of an AI will be as much an accident as a design. And that's good because it won't be forced into a form that is trying to mimic our own imperfect intelligence.

debacle 15y ago

The problem, of course, is that any heuristic based AI is going to be susceptible to some sort of Voigt-Kampf test which gives it away.

excuse-me 15y ago
Unless you modify the behaviour of the human population to make it more unthinking, repetitive and predicable. Then it becomes impossible to spot the replicants! LOL, frist post, l33t ......

code_scrapping 15y ago

I agree. The point is that the Turing tests grades the machines capability to mimic, pretend. It's an impressive feat, but that's not what we're looking for. We are trying to get better ways of gathering new informations, handling unforeseen circumstances, and that's what we're getting in the Hollywood block-busters. Not chat-bots as walexander mentioned. On the other hand they said: "The first is the ready availability of vast amounts of raw data — from video feeds to complete sound environments, and from casual conversations to technical documents on every conceivable subject. The second is the advent of sophisticated techniques for collecting, organizing, and processing this rich collection of data." While first is true, the second is as generic as it gets. This is a nice overview of the current (comercial) advances, but the title is hyped.

ErrantX 15y ago

I think the problem has arisen from a misunderstanding of what Turing was getting at in his paper. At first he talks about Chess (an example chosen, as we know, because it has a well defined rule set) and a computer imitating a Chess player. He makes the point that, to a human player, it may be difficult to determine between a human player and a computer imitator. Even though the computer is not AI or otherwise "intelligent" it could be mistaken, under the constraints of the test, as human. Then he sets up the more complex test with the questioning (i.e. "convince me you are a man"). The point there is much the same; at some point it is possible to construct a machine that, within the constraints of the test, is functionally "human". He never claims it as an ultimate test for AI. IMO the greater point he suggests, which always seems to get glossed over, is this: that at some level of complexity a computer will be able to pass a test (as yet undefined) in which it imitates complete human intelligence to such a degree it appears to be full AI. That could all be rambling... but that is my understanding of his point. Over the interim the Turing Test has gotten mixed around and confused to such a degree that this insight is forgotten.

3pt14159 15y ago
The Turing test should introduce a completely unexpected set of questions. (double quotes for human, single for AI) "Hi" 'hi, how are you?' "Good. Do you know what we are doing today?" 'Yes, we are attempting to prove that I posses sentient intelligence' "Right. Would you like to prove that you are sentient?" 'Yes' "Excellent. I would like you to design a new five wheeled vehicle for me, can you do that?" 'Yes. Is autocad acceptable?' "Sure. Start with basics though, don't dive in, I'd like to see successful iterations and reasoning about design choices" Something like that. Otherwise it's all just BS breadth first search through other people's past conversations.
- DannoHung 15y ago
  You don't want an AI, you want an artificial genius who can handle any task.
  - fusiongyro 15y ago

Tuna-Fish 15y ago

I have never actually understood the "chinese room experiment". As formulated in WP, the point is supposed to be that while the room is working, the man in it cannot understand Chinese, so similarly the computer cannot understand it. But isn't this completely pointless, as despite what the man and the computer can or cannot understand, the room or the program can? The man (or the computer) is just a cog in a larger system, and cannot be expected to understand the system, just as none of my individual neurons cannot understand English. > I think what we all had hoped for, however, was HAL. What we are going to get is more and more iterations of cleverbot. And what is the difference? When we can build a program that can parse natural language and use it to access information, it will open a whole new technological revolution.

guccimane 15y ago
Searle calls your objection the "systems reply", and his response can be found here (2a): http://www.iep.utm.edu/chineser/#H2 http://www.iep.utm.edu/chineser/#H2
- Lockyy 15y ago
  And he completely misses the point of the argument. "There isn’t anything in the system that isn’t in him." This small sentence just completely shows his ignorance of virtual machines. Yes my tinyxp system is running within Ubuntu, that doesn't mean my Ubuntu system is a tinyxp system. “[it’s just ridiculous to say] that while [the] person doesn’t understand Chinese, somehow the conjunction of that person and bits of paper might” He is, yet again, falling back and just disregarding the argument. As I said before, he is arguing that because my processor cannot do maths would the aid of the rest of my computer it is ridiculous to assume that when combined properties might emerge. Sort of similar to how Sapience is an emergent property of our bodies really...
- bermanoid 15y ago
  Pretty much everything Searle has ever written on the subject can be predicted by starting with the argument "but only humans can understand meaning!" and working from there. In part c of that link, he lays it out quite clearly: even if you manage to build a detailed working simulation of a human brain, even if you then insert it inside a human's head and hook it up in all the right ways, you still haven't "done the job", because a mere simulation of a brain can't have mental states or understand meaning. Because it's not a human brain. In other words, he's an idiot. Or at least he's so committed to being "right" on this issue that he's willing to play the dirty philosophy game of sneakily redefining words behind the scenes until he's right by default. But in any case, he's not talking about any practical or mesurable effect or difficulty related to AI. He's arguing that even if you built HAL, he wouldn't acknowledge it as intelligent, because his definition of "intelligent" can only be applied to humans.

Lockyy 15y ago

I dislike the Chinese room experiment. The argument that he doesn't understand Chinese is like arguing that the hardware itself isn't an AI. No it isn't it is the software that is the AI. It is the set of instructions that he is following that understands Chinese. The argument that the creator of the experiment used against this was that if you removed the pen and paper and had the man do it all in his head, then the man still doesn't understand, but he completely missed the point. In that case it just changes from the pen and paper + man that is the hardware to purely the man. The Chinese room argument against AI falls down when you remember that the man is only the hardware. He may be essential to the running of the software, but he is just as much the mind of the Chinese translator as my processor is the maths running through it.

Toenex 15y ago

I'm glad someone else thinks this too. I feel that the Turing test has largely been a diversion and I don't think Turing intended such a literal interpretation. The point I think Turing was making was that we must look beyond our human experience when we look for intelligence in other forms.

ma2rten 15y ago

I am graduate student in artificial intelligence. I think what we all had hoped for, however, was HAL. What we are going to get is more and more iterations of cleverbot. We are getting there. We really are. A lot of iterations further and cleverbot could actually act more human than HAL. If you'd asked me a few month ago I would said that AI is basically just applied statistics, which sometimes manages to look intelligent if you don't look close enough. I changed my mind. There is some quite recent research in Natural Language Processing/Information Retrieval which manages to blur the line between just statistics over words and really understanding what those words mean (if you define meaning as relations to other symbols).

kubrickslair 15y ago
As an ex graduate student in Natural Language Processing/ Machine Learning, I was curious what recent changes occurred that made you see things from a different perspective? I have not been keeping track of newer research, so would love to know.
- ma2rten 15y ago
  Rereading my post it I realize it sounds like a big break though occurred in the last few month. That is not the case. I was basically talking about deep learning neural networks. Anyway, here a number of things that caused me to change my mind: 1. I saw this talk: http://videolectures.net/nips09_collobert_weston_dlnl/ http://videolectures.net/nips09_collobert_weston_dlnl/ this is their paper: http://ronan.collobert.com/pub/matos/2008_nlp_icml.pdf http://ronan.collobert.com/pub/matos/2008_nlp_icml.pdf but if you are interested in the bigger picture, I think you have to see the talk. 2. A saw this talk by Geoffrey Hinton about deep learning neural networks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyzOUbkUf3M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyzOUbkUf3M 3. I saw a talk and read some papers by these guys: http://www.gavagai.se/ethersource-technology.php http://www.gavagai.se/ethersource-technology.php It is not necessarily, that I believe in their approach, but it made rethink my idea of meaning. EDIT: this is also a cool paper in this regard http://nlp.stanford.edu/pubs/SocherLinNgManning_ICML2011.pdf http://nlp.stanford.edu/pubs/SocherLinNgManning_ICML2011.pdf

Craiggybear 15y ago

> Ants have very complex social structure and engineering abilities - but are they intelligent? They are differently enabled. Evolution gave them all they need to thrive and be successful. Intelligence is, in evolutionary terms, very expensive, hi-maintenance and often counter-productive. So is individuality. These things are not the natural end-product of an evolutionary process like they are assumed to be. In fact, its normally the exception rather than the rule. Simplicity (seldom complexity, except for a short while and in niche settings) is the end result of a perfected organism in harmony with its environment. You get what you need for the time frame in which you need it. After that, as soon as you don't need it so much, it will go. Like flight in birds. Dodo's didn't need it, lost it rapidly and then humans arrived. We killed them, tried to eat them and our technology (ships) brought vermin predators (rats and cats) to their world which they had no defence against -- and that was the end of them. Our `intelligence' didn't pan out too well for them. And they're just one example of this sort of thing. Its happening all the time. When you are sitting in the shattered and burned-out remains of your world (literally or metaphorically), intelligence looks overrated. The same will eventually, inevitably, happen to us. An AI, or our own avaricious greed and ambition, will probably finish us all off. Big brains, language and tool-making abilities are not necessarily the best or inevitable end outcomes in evolutionary processes. They happen because they need to. Then again, sometimes they don't, and that can pan out OK as well. When it does happen it also tends toward the self-limiting, as well. Just what you need and no more. The evolution of an AI will be as much an accident as a design. And that's good because it won't be forced into a form that is trying to mimic our own imperfect intelligence.