One thought on “Alan Turing

  1. shinichi Post author

    Turing test

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

    The Turing test, developed by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like responses. The evaluator would be aware that one of the two partners in conversation is a machine, and all participants would be separated from one another. The conversation would be limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen so the result would not depend on the machine’s ability to render words as speech. If the evaluator cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test. The test results do not depend on the machine’s ability to give correct answers to questions, only how closely its answers resemble those a human would give.

    The test was introduced by Turing in his 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, while working at the University of Manchester (Turing, 1950; p. 460). It opens with the words: “I propose to consider the question, ‘Can machines think?'” Because “thinking” is difficult to define, Turing chooses to “replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words.” Turing’s new question is: “Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?” This question, Turing believed, is one that can actually be answered. In the remainder of the paper, he argued against all the major objections to the proposition that “machines can think”.

    Since Turing first introduced his test, it has proven to be both highly influential and widely criticised, and it has become an important concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence. Some of these criticisms, such as John Searle’s Chinese room, are controversial in their own right.

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    Human intelligence vs. intelligence in general

    The Turing test does not directly test whether the computer behaves intelligently. It tests only whether the computer behaves like a human being. Since human behaviour and intelligent behaviour are not exactly the same thing, the test can fail to accurately measure intelligence in two ways:

    Some human behaviour is unintelligent

    The Turing test requires that the machine be able to execute all human behaviours, regardless of whether they are intelligent. It even tests for behaviours that may not be considered intelligent at all, such as the susceptibility to insults, the temptation to lie or, simply, a high frequency of typing mistakes. If a machine cannot imitate these unintelligent behaviours in detail it fails the test.
    This objection was raised by The Economist, in an article entitled “artificial stupidity” published shortly after the first Loebner Prize competition in 1992. The article noted that the first Loebner winner’s victory was due, at least in part, to its ability to “imitate human typing errors.” Turing himself had suggested that programs add errors into their output, so as to be better “players” of the game.

    Some intelligent behaviour is inhuman

    The Turing test does not test for highly intelligent behaviours, such as the ability to solve difficult problems or come up with original insights. In fact, it specifically requires deception on the part of the machine: if the machine is more intelligent than a human being it must deliberately avoid appearing too intelligent. If it were to solve a computational problem that is practically impossible for a human to solve, then the interrogator would know the program is not human, and the machine would fail the test.
    Because it cannot measure intelligence that is beyond the ability of humans, the test cannot be used to build or evaluate systems that are more intelligent than humans. Because of this, several test alternatives that would be able to evaluate super-intelligent systems have been proposed.

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