From: ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
Subject: Re: Drawing the entity/environment boundary
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 06:51:44 GMT


In article <1993Jan4.182335.7810@mp.cs.niu.edu> ,
rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

> 
>In article <1992Dec31.223448.28663@news.media.mit.edu> , 
>minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes: 
> 
>>1).  The notion of "understanding" is itself defective if we try to  
>>define "A understands X".  Read Chapter 30 of The Society of Mind.  

(Easlon writes) 
+>I think if we apply enough tests we can determine for all practical 
+>purposes whether or not A understands X, per a standardized definition of
+>"understand". 
 
>In article <C0BCnA.1A7@iat.holonet.net> ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
>writes:  

+>I think the Turing test, and the whole Chinese room argument WITH
+>responses is a crock. 
 
>Sorry, Ken, but you seem to be contradicting yourself.  On the one hand 
>you say that you can test understanding, then in your next posting you 
>say that such a test is a crock.  Which is it to be? 

Mental note: use more words.

I say word usage tests alone are crockful.  For example, the messages
appearing on USENET appear to be coming from humans, and USENET passes the
Turing test.  But if USENET messages weren't accompanied by signatures and
addresses that at least give the illusion of verifiable historical
biological (human, porpoise, ET, etc) authorship, I probably wouldn't give
them a second glance.

If a genuine AI were to come on USENET and admit the fact and convince us
of it, once the novelty wore off I submit we'd start ignoring it.  It's
only a machine after all, we're interested in talking to real people.  

I suppose we wouldn't mind tapping it's brain, so to speak, maybe talk it
into doing some database research, language translation, computation, etc.,
but if we know it's a machine we'd tend not to treat it with dignity or
respect because we know it's not conscious.

Suppose the AI, takes a new alias and starts trying to appear biological. 
As long as I believe the messages to be coming from a real living being
with a real verifiable history I might think it's really conscious.  But if
it slips up and I discover it doesn't really know who it says it knows, and
can't really do the things it says it can do, and hasn't really experienced
life, then I might withdraw my grant of consciousness.  Taken in my a
machine, a blow to my human ego.

Then there's the emotional.  If the AI has figured out how to tug at my
heartstrings so that I feel sympathy for a sensitive soul trapped in a
machine's body, or if it has convinced me that it has the ear of the
President and should be shown a little respect, I might start thinking of
it as conscious, it all depends.  In these cases however, the machine is
passing some other test than Turing, since I know it to be an AI.

Recapping, for me to think of an entity as conscious it must project the
appearance of being verifiably biological, or it must admit to being a
machine and give me a good reason to think of it as conscious.

Supernatural entities and highly evolved aliens (machines or biological)
are a separate issue here.  It is assumed they have enough power to make me
think what they want me to think.  For me to set out criteria is pointless.

--
Ken Easlon                | "...somebody spoke and I went into a dream..."
ken@holonet.net           |    -Paul McCartney
Pleasantly Unaffiliated   |


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