Topic Chosen: [5] The Turing Test and Searle's Chines Room Argument.
In order to simplify the terminology used in this discussion, I will refer to .
the Turing Test and Chinese Room Argument individually as "investigations".
The Turing Test and Searle's Chinese Room Argument are both investigations .
and/or explorations into the so-called mind of a computer machine. The main .
question that arises from both of these investigations, is "Can machines think?" .
Do they have human-like intelligence? And If so, how is this similar or .
different to human thinking? Can it be regarded as the same? The answer/s to .
these questions have many implications for the study Artificial Intelligence .
(AI).
To avoid confusion in my discussions, I have decided to discuss the Turing Test .
separately from Searle's Chinese Room Argument.
Definitions.
To begin a discussion relating to these two investigations, a very clear .
understanding of each is required. .
The Turing test, Turing's attempt to capture the notion of artificial .
intelligence.
The accepted definition of artificial intelligence, put forth by John McCarthy .
in 1955: "making a machine behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a .
human were so behaving." Since that time several distinct types of artificial .
intelligence have been elucidated.
Alan Turing, born in England in 1912 (died 1954), was a mathematician and .
computer scientist (before that discipline was even recognised), and is .
considered to be one of the fathers of modern digital computing. .
The Turing test, as he first described it in 1950, is a proposal for a test of a .
machine's capability to perform human-like conversation. The test proceeds as .
follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with two other .
parties, one a human and the other a machine; if the judge cannot reliably tell .
which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test. It is assumed that .
both the humans and the machine try to appear human.
