Social Question
Is the Turing test valid for detecting consciousness?
The Turing test was proposed by the mathematician Alan Turing as a means of determining whether a computer has consciousness. The test is simply to have a person ask questions of both a computer and another person and, on the basis of the answers, tell which is the computer and which is the person. I think that we can agree that this is a minimal test in the sense that if the computer consistently fails it, we can say that it does not have consciousness.
I think the test is reasonable. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck then it is a duck. If there is no way of distinguishing the behavior of a computer or, more generally, a robot, from that of a human, then the computer has consciousness.
The philosopher John Searle proposed an argument known as the Chinese room argument to argue against the validity of the Turing test. Imagine a room with a library of books that tells how to answer in Chinese any question written in Chinese. A person in the room answers questions written in Chineses submitted through a slot by looking up the answer and then returning the answer through the slot. Searle maintains that the person does not understand Chinese, despite behaving in a way indistinguishable from someone who does understand Chinese. He says that the behavior of the person is analogous to a computer executing a program.
I would use the following argument to counter Searle. Firstly, I would question being able to have an answer to every question. This would make the library omniscient, like God, and I could use the argument to question whether God has consciousness.
Going with the existentialists, I would say that what makes us consciousness is the need to make choices. Our humanness is determined as much by our limits as our strengths. If I were participating in a Turing test, I would ask questions of a personal nature. What is your favorite color, what foods do you prefer, what teams do you root for? To answer such questions, the computer has to limit itself to take on a specific personality. If it could do so convincingly then I would say that it has consciousness.
Composing members:
0
8 Answers
