X-Message-Number: 8562
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 1997 10:25:34 -0400
From: "John P. Pietrzak" <>
Subject: The Inhumanity of Cryonet
References: <>

John K Clark wrote:
> On Sat, 06 Sep 1997  <> Wrote:
>                            
>         >To my mind, however, the ability to mimic a human pattern of
>         >responses to queries across a network connection is not
>         >sufficient to encompass the intelligence of a human.  
>
> We're answering each other's questions over a network right now, do
> you think I or anybody on Cryonet is a human and if so why?

Right now, I do believe we're all humans here. :)  Why, because I
know pretty well what the state of the art is currently in attempts
to create Turing-Test-beating software.  I also believe that within
a decade or so, it will actually become very hard to tell (at least
over a short period of time) whether you are receiving mail from
a real person or an automaton -- i.e., I believe that the Turing Test
will be beaten (at least for a majority of interrogators :) ), and
soon.

The question then becomes, is that program (which beat the TT)
intelligent?  I have no idea, because we don't use a definiton of
intelligence in the Turing Test!  We may not be able to immediately
tell that the thing isn't human, but I'll bet that the majority of us
will still feel the thing is not quite what measures up to actual
"intelligence".


John

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