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Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

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Page 1: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Can (non-human) machines think?

Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and

Intelligence”

Page 2: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

What is a “computer?”

•  “A person who makes calculations or computations; a calculator, a reckoner; spec. a person employed to make calculations in an observatory, in surveying, etc. Now chiefly hist.” [OED]

•  ENIAC: Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (1946) was the world’s first electronic “Turing complete” computer. [Wiki]

Page 3: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Logic Gate: A Simple “Computer”

Page 4: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

More Gates, Smaller Package

Page 5: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

30 years: 250,000 times more RAM 1985: Kaypro: 64 KB RAM

2012: Mac: 16 GB RAM

Page 6: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Could Computers Think?

•  What is “thinking?” –  Turing means more than mere calculating.

•  What kinds of things can think? –  Human beings? –  Non-human animals? –  Computers?

•  How can we tell if something can think? –  How do I know if you are a “thinking thing?” –  How do I know that you are conscious?

Page 7: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Turing:

•  The real question concerns how it is that we can tell if something is thinking.

•  Turing offers a “functional definition” of thinking: – A thing thinks if it meets the same behavioral

criteria as do the paradigm cases of thinking things, •  i.e., if it acts (in the relevant ways) the same way that

human beings act.

Page 8: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

The Imitation Game:

•  Played with 3 people “a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C).”

•  “The interrogator stays in a room apart from the other two.”

•  The interrogator asks questions and tries to determine, from the answers, which answerer is the man and which is the woman.

Page 9: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Turing’s Strategy

•  Instead of asking whether or not a computer can “think,” – How could we measure that?

•  Ask instead whether or not a computer could successfully play the “imitation game,” and fool a questioner trying to figure out which answers come from a human. – This is at least something we can measure.

Page 10: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Turing’s “Imitation Game”

Page 11: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Can digital computers “be made to play satisfactorily the part of A in the imitation

game?”

•  “The new problem has the advantage of drawing a fairly sharp line between the physical and the intellectual capacities of a man.” –  i.e., by looking at the answers provided (rather

than what the ‘answerer’ looks like, etc.), it focuses on what is “essential” to thinking.

Page 12: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Turing:

•  “I believe that … it will be possible to program computers, with a storage capacity of 109 [i.e., 10 gigabytes], to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70% chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning.”

Page 13: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Turing’s Claim

•  Any computer (hardware plus software plus data) that can successfully play the imitation game –  i.e., one that can provide answers to our questions

to it that we can’t distinguish from the answers provided by a human being—

•  …thinks! –  I have no more reason to deny that it “is

conscious” or “has inner states” than I do to deny that you do.

Page 14: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Turing’s Reasoning •  The Imitation Game gives us a functional definition

(a behavioral criterion) for whether or not something can think.

•  Since we can’t “look inside other people’s minds” this is the best criterion we can get.

•  If computers can successfully play the imitation game, then they meet the behavioral criterion, and so (we would have no reason to deny that) they think. –  So, if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck!

Page 15: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Objection: The Argument from Consciousness

•  1) Only things which are conscious (i.e., that have conscious mental states) can think. •  2) Computers are not conscious (i.e.,

do not have conscious mental states). •  3) Therefore, computers cannot think.

Page 16: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Turing’s Response: •  But how do we know that computers aren’t

conscious? –  Isn’t this essentially the same question we are discussing …

•  … i.e., whether or not computers can “think?”

•  The objection begs the question: –  The real question is whether or not computers can be

conscious. The objection just assumes that they cannot.

•  How can we tell if other human beings are conscious—that other human beings can “think?”

Page 17: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Who thinks?

•  I am pretty sure that I think! –  I am directly aware of my own thoughts.

•  How can I tell if someone (something) else thinks? –  If I need to be directly aware of their thoughts,

then I can’t know anyone thinks except me. –  If I don’t need to be directly aware of their

thoughts, I must rely on observable criteria. The “Turing Test” provides such criteria.

Page 18: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

I Think: Do You?

Page 19: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

The “upshot”: •  I can’t “see” anyone’s conscious mental states but

my own. •  All I can “see” is their behavior (how they answer

questions, etc.). •  If I judge that other people think, simply on the

basis of observing their behavior, without directly seeing their conscious mental states, then I must reach the same conclusion about computers.

•  Alternately put: If I deny that computers can think because I can’t see their “inner states,” then I will have to deny that other humans can think, for the same reason. This is solipsism.

Page 20: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Conclusion: •  The criteria we in fact use to attribute thinking

(consciousness) to other human beings are behavioral. –  These criteria concern linguistic behavior—how a think talks, not what

it looks like. •  If these are the criteria I use with other human beings, it would

be inconsistent to demand some “higher standard” of computers.

•  So, if a computer could meet the same standards of linguistic behavior as do other human beings (i.e., if it could successfully play the imitation game), we must, on pain of inconsistency, claim that it “thinks,” i.e., that it is “conscious.”

Page 21: Can (non-human) machines think? - Homepages at WMUhomepages.wmich.edu/~baldner/turingf12.pdf · Can (non-human) machines think? Alan Turing: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Underlying Assumptions? Personal Reflections

•  How do we tell that some other being (human or non-human) “thinks” or is conscious? –  Is it really by observing their behavior?

•  Aren’t infants/pets aware of their parents/owners emotions (mental states)? –  Are they inferring this on the basis of the linguistic

behavior they observe?

•  Did you have to learn that others are conscious?