X-Message-Number: 4313
From: 
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 1995 21:53:53 -0400
Subject: gender game

I can't resist just a few more words on the Turing Test.

If I am not mistaken, Turing himself called it the Imitation Game. In one
version, the interrogator tried to guess whether a man or woman was behind
the curtain. The point, once more, is that you don't have to be a cow to say
"cheese." If the interrogator was deceived--as could easily happen--then the
Test was not sufficient. A person might convincingly imitate the opposite
gender in conversation, and yet have very definite psychological and
BIOLOGICAL differences.

Extremist Turing Testers say that if a system acts [converses] intelligently,
then it IS intelligent, by [their] definition. But the appropriateness of
their definition is precisely what is at issue. There are many kinds and
degrees of intelligence, and which of them--if any--require feeling or
consciousness to exist, or for full expression, is presently unknown.

My own guess is that feeling requires SOME degree of intelligence, since
otherwise it would have no evolutionary advantage; it doesn't help to feel,
if you don't know what to do about it. And feeling provides more effective
intelligence, or a shortcut to solving problems, at a given level of
computational capacity. But  intelligence (defined loosely as goal-directed,
problem-solving capacity) COULD exist without feeling, as far as I can see.

Same old conclusions: (1) For all we know, an intelligent Robot (intelligence
without consciousness) could exist. (2) We will have a better handle on these
questions  AFTER we know the anatomy and physiology of feeling/consciousness
in mammals. 

Robert Ettinger


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