He Turing Test: Definition Of Artificial Intelligence

he Turing Test is often discussed without reference to the fact that it is not really a test at all but a definition of Artificial Intelligence.

Before I explain this statement let me sketch the background of the subject.

Thirty or so years ago computers were developing so rapidly and becoming so powerful that professorships of 'artificial intelligence' were being established in top universities and fears were being voiced of computers taking over. Today computers are many times more powerful and far more portable but humans still seem to have them under control.

The idea of computers taking over was always absurd. A computer takes in data provided by humans, runs a program of instructions written by humans and delivers output data to its

The pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing had analysed the question 'Can computers think' in the 1940s and suggested a test to answer it, what is now call the Turing Test. In essence, a human interrogator would sit alone in a room with a keyboard on which they could enter questions. Written answers would be supplied by an entity in another room and displayed to the interrogator. After ten minutes or so of questioning, the interrogator would declare the entity human or artificial. If the entity was declared human but was in fact artificial it would have passed the

It is a mistake to conclude that the Turing Test has proved that the computer can think. The Test is simply a way of deciding whether it appears to think about the task in question. If it does appear to think then we can say as a matter of definition that the computer displays artificial intelligence.

To sum up, the Turing Test should be seen as a way of defining whether or not the computer displays 'artificial intelligence', not for deciding whether it actually thinks.

And the display of 'artificial intelligence' by a computer does not prove its possession of fundamental beliefs or of self-consciousness. Indeed, as Bertrand Russell argued, we cannot prove that our fellow humans have minds like ourselves. We are bound to believe it without proof. But there is no reason to believe the same about computers. (See the following note on 'Credos').

I hope that one day people who are prominent in public life (scientists, broadcasters, presenters, clerics, commentators) will see it as a duty to tell us clearly and briefly 'where they are coming from' - that is, to publish their fundamental beliefs or their 'My Credo in a Nutshell' (acronym