3 ms·

Um. I follow you but that's a pretty huge stretch, considering that nothing in the paper is inconsistent with the conventional reading (that the machine is to i

Um. I follow you but that's a pretty huge stretch, considering that nothing in the paper is inconsistent with the conventional reading (that the machine is to imitate a person). There are sentences that are consistent with other readings, but none that's inconsistent with the usual one.

foldr 2y ago
The machine is imitating a person on both understandings of the task. The difference lies in C’s task (whether C is trying to find which of A and B is a woman and which is a man, or trying to find which is human and which is a machine). I think the initial description of the task is genuinely ambiguous. Your interpretation of it hadn’t occurred to me before, but I do see it now. I still think that “…when a machine takes the part of A in this game…” is most naturally interpreted as leaving the task unaltered but for the man being replaced by a machine, rather than implicitly describing the task mutadis mutandis. But reasonable people can certainly differ on such questions of interpretation. Honestly I think Turing’s whole framing of the task is unnecessarily elaborate and confusing. Why even bother describing the man/woman task to begin with? I am not sure. Popular descriptions of the ‘Turing Test’ don’t seem to find this framing of any expositionary value.
- fenomas 2y ago
  I think the point of the man/woman version of the game is that it lets Turing propose his question in relative terms. He doesn't ask "can the machine fool somebody N% of the time?" (as several in this thread imagine), but rather "can the machine fool somebody as often as one person fools another under similar conditions?". > Your interpretation of it hadn’t occurred to me before, The idea of a Turing Test is pretty widely understood to mean a test where a person guesses which responses come from a machine, not where they guess someone's gender. So my interpretation here is just that the paper says what most people think it says.
  - foldr 2y ago
    Sorry, I am being ambiguous myself. I meant that your interpretation of this specific sentence had not occurred to me: > We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes the part of A in this game?" I think you are right about what Turing meant. But it had honestly never occurred to me before that this description of the game could be understood as a description of the standard 'Turing test'. So, for this reason, I had always been sympathetic to the point that the standard Turing test does not appear to be the test that Turing describes in the original paper. Here is a paper that makes your case, in case anyone finds it interesting. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gualtiero-Piccinini/publication/251383110_Turing's_Rules_for_the_Imitation_Game/links/59342fabaca272fc5541fb7f/Turings-Rules-for-the-Imitation-Game.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gualtiero-Piccinini/pub...
    - fenomas 2y ago
      Thanks for the paper! I wasn't aware of it but it's very much what I wanted to say. The bit about Turing's other test involving chess was particularly interesting.

foldr 2y ago

The machine is imitating a person on both understandings of the task. The difference lies in C’s task (whether C is trying to find which of A and B is a woman and which is a man, or trying to find which is human and which is a machine). I think the initial description of the task is genuinely ambiguous. Your interpretation of it hadn’t occurred to me before, but I do see it now. I still think that “…when a machine takes the part of A in this game…” is most naturally interpreted as leaving the task unaltered but for the man being replaced by a machine, rather than implicitly describing the task mutadis mutandis. But reasonable people can certainly differ on such questions of interpretation. Honestly I think Turing’s whole framing of the task is unnecessarily elaborate and confusing. Why even bother describing the man/woman task to begin with? I am not sure. Popular descriptions of the ‘Turing Test’ don’t seem to find this framing of any expositionary value.

fenomas 2y ago
I think the point of the man/woman version of the game is that it lets Turing propose his question in relative terms. He doesn't ask "can the machine fool somebody N% of the time?" (as several in this thread imagine), but rather "can the machine fool somebody as often as one person fools another under similar conditions?". > Your interpretation of it hadn’t occurred to me before, The idea of a Turing Test is pretty widely understood to mean a test where a person guesses which responses come from a machine, not where they guess someone's gender. So my interpretation here is just that the paper says what most people think it says.
- foldr 2y ago
  Sorry, I am being ambiguous myself. I meant that your interpretation of this specific sentence had not occurred to me: > We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes the part of A in this game?" I think you are right about what Turing meant. But it had honestly never occurred to me before that this description of the game could be understood as a description of the standard 'Turing test'. So, for this reason, I had always been sympathetic to the point that the standard Turing test does not appear to be the test that Turing describes in the original paper. Here is a paper that makes your case, in case anyone finds it interesting. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gualtiero-Piccinini/publication/251383110_Turing's_Rules_for_the_Imitation_Game/links/59342fabaca272fc5541fb7f/Turings-Rules-for-the-Imitation-Game.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gualtiero-Piccinini/pub...
  - fenomas 2y ago
    Thanks for the paper! I wasn't aware of it but it's very much what I wanted to say. The bit about Turing's other test involving chess was particularly interesting.