The Turing test
Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 4:22 pm
I'm curious as to what the Turing test is good for.
On the one hand you have this computer set-up that's programmed semantically by a number of programmers. On the other you have this semantic (naturally) one person. Between these two, the computer and the person, another person is asked if this person can separate the machine from the human, the person.
So if one considers this from the two year old to the hundred year old, being the span of the age of this person who is to determine the person from the computer, the older person naturally has a greater range of questions to ask than the younger person, usually, because age means greater reflection.
Naturally, the older person does this better than the younger (you may deduct the very oldest).
If you in addition to this give a time limit for making the question, like 10 minutes, I think it's reasonable to say that this gets severely much more difficult. So if one is combining the very young age with a relative short time-limit to ask the questions, I think it's fair to suggest that a considerable number of people will fail the test, being unable to separate the person from the semantically programmed computer if it's comprehensive enough.
So what is the Turing test supposed to prove? What is its significance? The person and the programmers are semantically indistinguishable. That is, the computer system may even prove more advanced than the person if one puts enough programming into it. Sure, one can point to the possibility for actually being able to present a computer system that can answer like a person can or even better, but this is already done and is surely matching the younger people in combination with the time-limit.
My conclusion is that the Turing test is of no significance (anymore) since the programming possibilities are so vast!
What do you think?
On the one hand you have this computer set-up that's programmed semantically by a number of programmers. On the other you have this semantic (naturally) one person. Between these two, the computer and the person, another person is asked if this person can separate the machine from the human, the person.
So if one considers this from the two year old to the hundred year old, being the span of the age of this person who is to determine the person from the computer, the older person naturally has a greater range of questions to ask than the younger person, usually, because age means greater reflection.
Naturally, the older person does this better than the younger (you may deduct the very oldest).
If you in addition to this give a time limit for making the question, like 10 minutes, I think it's reasonable to say that this gets severely much more difficult. So if one is combining the very young age with a relative short time-limit to ask the questions, I think it's fair to suggest that a considerable number of people will fail the test, being unable to separate the person from the semantically programmed computer if it's comprehensive enough.
So what is the Turing test supposed to prove? What is its significance? The person and the programmers are semantically indistinguishable. That is, the computer system may even prove more advanced than the person if one puts enough programming into it. Sure, one can point to the possibility for actually being able to present a computer system that can answer like a person can or even better, but this is already done and is surely matching the younger people in combination with the time-limit.
My conclusion is that the Turing test is of no significance (anymore) since the programming possibilities are so vast!
What do you think?