Re: Turing Test question

From: Loebner Hugh Gene (hugh@loebner.net)
Date: Fri Mar 30 2001 - 20:49:23 BST


Hello Dr. Harnad,

I believe that Alan Turing intended his test to be more general than is
recognized.* That was one reason I included the requirement that the
winning program must deal with audio/visual input.

I argued with the Loebner Prize Committee (while there was a LP
Committee) to include robotics as a criterion, but got nowhere. Later,
after the LP Committee resigned en masse, I set forth my requirement
for A/V, which precipitated a fire storm of protest from the usenet AI
community. I just didn't have the strength to go for robotics.

If there are any flaws in the LP contest beyond whatever intrinsic
flaws may lie in the TT test, please advise, since I have tried to make
the LP contest as "pure" a TT test as possible (at least a verbal TT).

(*) As you must know, Turing discussed storage requirements of the test
when played with a blind person, and he suggested buying sense organs
for heuristic programming of the machine. I think these are sufficient
evidence of his interest in sensory input.

Regards,

Hugh Loebner

-----Original Message-----
From: Stevan Harnad
Sent: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 17:41:41 +0000 (GMT)
To:
CC: ,
Subject: Re: Turing Test question

Mike,

Good luck. Note that the principle behind Hugh's Prize is flawed
(though the flaw is probably partly Turing's fault). It's not a game,
not a trick, not a one-night affair, and not about fooling some of the
people some of the time...

See:
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad92.turing.html

Cheers, Stevan

On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, MJ Martin wrote:

> Dr. Harnad:
>
> Thank you for these excellent responses! This entire area of the
> Turing Test is all new to me--I've long known about enigma and Turing,
> but this other area is even more interesting.
>
> I also spoke at length with Hugh Loebner (cc'd), of the Loebner Prize,
> who had many of the same concerns you shared. I hope to put this all
> together in a feature-like article that incorporates several
> up-to-date "attempts" and efforts to pass the Turing Test.
>
> Mike Martin
> Senior Science Correspondent
> United Press International
> www.upi.com



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