🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <7708@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>I think that's a factor.  But, for instance, supposing it's true that
>Daryl McCullough is a (the only?) behaviorist.  Why is it that so few
>people on the "pro-AI" side take issue with his arguments?

Daryl presents this point of view as a casual side remark, and does not
use it as the basis for any argument.  Thus there doesn't seem to be
anything worth taking issue with.

>Now, I'd be happy to be wrong.  If, in fact, most people on the
>net, or in AI, think the Turing Test is bogus, that would be great.

I don't believe they think it bogus.  More likely they think it an no
more than a crude ad hoc test until we understand intelligence rather
better.  The problem seems to be that you are reading much more into
the TT than others intend.

>For instance, I said the other day that students in Edinburgh
>would argue that the Eliza program had a small amount of real
>understanding, and that the person teaching the course might
>argue on the same side.  Can they really be thinking of the
>functional organization of Eliza?

People are often fooled by stage magicians too.  So what? Does it occur
to you that perhaps these people are using the word "understanding" in
a different way from you?

>Or consider all the people who express the systems reply as "the
>system understands".  This is a minor detail, but what are people
>thinking when they say it?  Are they thinking `a la McDermott
>that the reason for saying the system understands would be the 
>theory used to construct it?  If so, why didn't they say so?

Why should they say so?  This is a natural implicit assumption.  Searle
allows us to assume that a suitable system exists, so it is natural
to implicitly assume that this system has the "right" functional
organization.