Can machines think on alan turing’s computer machinery and i
Can machines think on alan turing�s computer machinery and iThe imitation of intelligence in isolation from other human attributes seems to be the main point in Alan Turing�s Computer Machinery and Intelligence where he considers the question �Can machines think?� Using his �imitation game� I agree that Turing successfully addresses both this question and clarifies intelligence as separate from humanity.
Alan Turing�s Imitation Game is a question and answer style quiz with three participants. There is one interrogator and two players that answer the interrogator�s questions. In the first example given the aim of the game is for the interrogator to be able to successfully conclude which of the players is a man and which is a woman, having being given no more information than the typed answers to the questions.
Specimen questions and answers are given:
Q: Please write me a sonnet on the subject of the Forth Bridge.
A: Count me out on this one. I never could write poetry.
Q: Add 34957 to 70764.
A: (Pause about 30 seconds and then give as answer) 105621.1
The interrogator addresses the players as X and Y. The challenging element to the experiment is that the man will be trying to convince the interrogator that he is in fact the woman.
Turing�s motivation for creating the Imitation Game was not in line with gender issues so, to answer the question, �Can machines think?� the man (given as A) is substituted for a machine.2
The type of machine used is limited to a digital computer. This is by no means a limitation as foreseen by Turing that �in about fifty years time one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted�.3
Speaking of machines thinking is one thing but a computer passing Turing�s imitation game, now known as �The Loebner Prize�4 is another, presently unaccomplished feat.
In summary of Turing�s case for machine�s thinking I accept and applaud his counterarguments against such points as biology and a human soul being relevant to the question. The solipsist argument on consciousness that we need to �be� the subject (man or machine) in order to accept that it is actually thinking is also invalidated by Turing. The correlation made between a human�s reactions and scientific induction is well founded in psychology, as is the delineation of behaviour into personal �laws of conduct�. The imperfection of human thought is only an issue in the confines of the �imitation game� and can be installed as part of a computers program. Outside of the game the human�s propensity for slow and incorrect results puts them behind the machine, and perhaps if Inman Harvey, a mathematician turned roboticist at Britain's University of Sussex is to be believed the computers artificial intelligence will grow exponentially of there own accord:
By mimicking evolution, ''it's possible to create artificial brains without really understanding how they work,'' he says. In other words, they could evolve their own internal programming, just as human brains have.5
Inman Harvey�s point backs up Turing�s response to �Lady Lovelace�s Objection� that a machine could not originate a �creative mental act�.
I believe along with Turing that for a machine to imitate a human�s thoughts in the form of written words it requires only a large enough capacity and a complex enough program. According to the August edition of Business Week magazine this is only a matter of decreasing time:
The human brain has only a short time left as the smartest thing on earth. The speed and complexity of computers will continue to double every 18 months through 2012. By then the density of computer circuits will have jumped 1,000-fold, and the raw processing power of a human brain will fit into a shoe box. 6
I have no disagreements with Alan Turing�s answer to �Can machine�s think?� and I acknowledge the amazing foresight in his comprehensive answer. I do however disagree with Douglas R. Hofstadter�s �Reflections�. From an experiential standpoint, as well as reading physicists and medical doctors that have not �taken back� their findings on psychic abilities, I argue that the �revolution� against anti-materialistic science has begun7. With the furthering of artificial intelligence, silicon technology, cybergenetics, nano-technology and genetic engineering the latent intuitive psychic abilities of man will perhaps be the only thing that sets us apart from the machines.
Alan Turing�s Computer Machinery and Intelligence was a foundation stone for what is now occurring in our early 21st century society. As mentioned earlier, at the Loebner Prize level, no machine has successfully imitated a human�s �thinking�. As Turing successfully points out, the evolution of computer�s will reach the benchmark of intelligence and surpass it.