🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <12214@csli.Stanford.EDU> weyand@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Weyand) writes:
>kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) writes:
>::Finally, let's look at the case where Searle memorizes the rules and
>::passes the Turing test without the books.
>
>::. . . notice that if his questioner should
>::ask Searle his name, or the time of day, or the color of his tie, he
>::would *not* be able to answer correctly.
>
>No!  Searle's assumption is that the room answers "all" questions.  This
>includes "what is  your name?"  If the questioner asked Searle for *his* name
>Searle would reply "Searle" (unless he asked in Chinese).  If he asked in
>Chinese Searle may manipulate the book in which case the CR would respond with
>a name.  Remember there are obviously two agents here;
>Searle and the Chinese speaker.  Clearly a system couldn't pass
>the Turing Test if it couldn't answer questions that would (weakly) imply self-
>awareness.  But Searle's assumption is that the CR does pass the TT!

It is not obvious to Searle that there are two agents!  I would like to
avoid discussing whether he is right about that, because I think we can
make real progress if we stick to some simpler issues first.

Searle has carefully separated the CR example from the rest of his
argument about AI, and I want to follow him in that.  The CR does a great
job of splitting out one human capacity from the rest of thinking.  Searle
wants to focus on learning meanings, which is fine by me.  So let's
consider only what Searle (the guy who speaks English) learns from the
rulebooks.

>::Searle is correct that the rules contain no information about Chinese
>::semantics.  But he is wrong about *why* that information is absent.  He
>::thinks that programs have no semantics, which is an obvious mistake.
>::It is not because the Chinese responses are programmed that they have
>::no semantics.  Rather, the Turing test itself is too easy.  Turing did
>::not insist that the conversation in the imitation game include references
>::to events outside the dialogue.  The Turing test (as most people think of
>::it) can be passed by a program that uses no semantic information.
>
>Absolutely not!  The Turing Test if anything is too hard.  Turing even
>acknowledge that himself.  Turing didn't insist anything in particular
>about what the interregator should ask.  He simply said that rather than
>ask the question "could a machine think"  we should ask whether it can fool
>us into believing it is a person.  Clearly for us to believe an agent was
>a person we would have to ask it all kinds of questions that referred to 
>various events.  We'd ask how they felt at the moment, if they like to read,
>to tell us a romantic story, to explain what it means to be conscious, 
>whether or not it had free will, why? etc.

The questions you suggest are perfect examples of what I mean
about the usual idea of the Turing test being to easy.  But you do
have a good point about the Turing test being too hard.  I agree that in
some respects it is too hard.

When you suggest questions such as "Do you like to read", you allow for
fixed responses.  Now, none of us programmers would be particularly
impressed just because somebody programmed a computer to tell the time.
But check this out:  No "formal symbol manipulator" can tell the time.
A clock, even a clock chip, is not a formal symbol, and reading a clock
is not a formal manipulation.  (I swiped this time-of-day example from
somebody here on the net, but I've forgotten who)


>::He would not learn the semantics of Chinese, but he might learn the syntax
>::of Chinese.
>
>Clearly Searle has internalized more than the rules of Chinese syntax.
>The CR can carry on a conversation well enough to pass the Turing Test.
>This obviuosly takes more intelligence than a natural language parsing
>system and look-up table.   . . .

True, but slow down!  Searle has not admitted that he would learn
*anything* by memorizing the rules.  At this stage, we are only talking
about knowledge of language.  We'll add other knowledge to the argument
later.


>::Now suppose that Searle is provided with rules which not only allow him
>::to pass the standard Turing test, but also enable him to answer Chinese
>::questions about the color of his tie, and all the other everyday queries
>::he might encounter living in China.  When he is given the Chinese question
>::"What color is your tie?" the rules will no doubt direct him to look at
>::his tie, note its color, and select a Chinese symbol appropriate to that
>::color.  Clearly Searle is on his way to learning the semantics of the
>::Chinese color vocabulary.  The path from here to complete knowledge of
>::Chinese semantics is difficult.  Language-learning problems related to
>::this have been studied by philosophers under the name "radical translation"
>::or "radical interpretation".  Armed with the rules for manipulating the
>::symbols and the procedures for assigning symbols to observable qualities,
>::Searle would be well prepared for the radical translation process.
>
>I think you are confused about the CR situation.  Searle is only manipulating
>the signs and symbols of the book.  The book with Searle manipulating it
>is another agent that happens to speak Chinese.  If the interregators asked
>for the color of the agent's tie the CR would certainly not respond with the
>color of Searle's tie.  The questions are not aimed towards Searle.
>This is all part of Searle's sophistry.  He wants us to identify with him
>the manipulator (the CPU) and not with the Chinese Speaker embodied within the
>book.  Obviuosly Searle doesn't understand a word of Chinese, Searle doesn't
>have to convince me of that.

I'm trying to convince you that Searle *does* understand Chinese!  Or at
least, from the right kind of rulebooks, he could figure it out.  This
means that if sombody holds up the Chinese character for blue, and says
"What does this mean" in English, Searle will be able to say "Blue", and
be able to explain his reasons for thinking that the character means blue.

Given the two-agents-in-one-body point of view, I can see how you would
find some ambiguity in the question "What color is your tie?".  So turn
it around.  Suppose the interrogator asks "What color is MY tie?" (in
Chinese, of course).  Plug that into the paragraph above, and you should
see my point.


>In Dennet and Hofstadter's "The Mind's I" Searle's article is included
>with comments from Hofstadter and Dennet.  There rebuttal to Searle is
>very good and if you haven't read it I would refer you to it.  I think you'll
>find it very interesting.

I have read it, thank you.  I think Dennet does a little better than
Hofstadter;  Searle's terminology is more familiar to philosophers.


>::So if we add the appropriate proviso to the Turing test, requiring that
>::the system not only respond coherently in kind to Chinese questions,
>::but also display native competence in Chinese descriptions of its physical
>::environment, then by learning the same rules Searle _would_ learn Chinese.
>::Or at least, he would have enough information to figure out Chinese.  And
>::that knowledge of Chinese would be part of Searle's own knowledge, not a
>::part of some "second personality". At this point, I think I've dismembered
>::Searle's original example, but I should anticipate a probable objection:
>::(make that several objections)
>
>We don't need to add any proviso.  We can ask whatever questions we want.
>There were never any constraints on the questions; hence the power of the
>test.
>It's possible that Searle could learn Chinese if he had some way of relating
>the symbols coming in to the room with the world.  But more likely Searle
>would sit in the room for the rest of his life without ever knowing what he
>was doing.  Searle is simply a symbol manipulator.  

The proviso is just that the right kind of questions do get asked.

If Searle can tell the time, he's not just a symbol manipulator.

>Very interesting ideas I'll be reading.
>--Chris Weyand
>--weyand@csli.Stanford.Edu

Thanks for taking the time to comment.