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Chris · 27 Jan 2005, 14:24 · from 2005-January.txt.gz

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From: rasputin_ at hotmail.com (Chris)
Date: Thu Jan 27 14:24:26 2005
Subject: (urth) (no subject)
In-Reply-To: <41F95DB1.3040800 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BAY102-F215B1EE2C0EF7B3ED70F4286780 at phx.gbl>

Well, with regard to 5HC note that if the idea that abos can't use tools, 
then Veil's hypothesis seems hopelessly naive. Does Veil know something (ie, 
that popular wisdom is wrong and abos can use tools) that others do not? She 
did spend some time studying her subject. Perhaps the second and third 
novellas are naive, based on a folktale conception of the abos. If *that* 
were the case, then in all likelihood V.R.T. is not an abo, but would like 
to imply that he is.

With regard to Turing, what you just described is basically a semantic 
struggle. Defining intelligence, as you say, "extensionally" (although this 
really isn't quite right, I see what you're trying to say). "If it looks 
like a duck, and quacks like a duck..." To which Searle can be seen 
volleying (again, mostly semantically): no, it doesn't matter what it looks 
like, intelligence is the product of a specific biological process and 
machines can't have it, by definition, no matter what they do or "say". The 
part that any empirical test or evidence plays in this debate is much 
smaller than it might appear. The empirical test, of course, appears as a 
product of having already accepted Turing's position.

I think that ultimately the tool-using test you're talking about, if 
implemented in a way that actually worked, would be more or less the same as 
a standard test. Here you would have to be concerned with what constitutes a 
"use" of a tool, and be able to quantify between more and less intelligent 
uses for the tool, which involves "imaginitiveness" and "logical potential". 
Not to mention that sometimes it is more intelligent not to use a tool than 
to use it. (And language is as good a tool as any...)

>This doesn't actually have anything to do with the issue, but I've always 
>thought the true subtlety of the Turing test usually
>goes unappreciated: What the Turing Test asserts is that there is no way to 
>perform all the operations of intelligence,
>in any way simpler and more mechanical than actual intelligence.  
>Intelligence is incompressible, if you will. Or, intelligence
>is defined extensionally, not intentionally.
>Oh wait, I've thought of a point: Tool-using is a skill. Not intelligence 
>in and of itself.  So, when you test AI, do you ask it to use a
>inclined plane, pully and other bric-a-brac to prove its intelligence, or 
>do you test its imaginativeness and other logical potential?
>
>~Maru
>
>James Wynn wrote:
>
>>>I think in 1972 toolmaking was considered to be the defining
>>>characteristic of Hom Sap. It was thought that tools cane first,
>>>brains later. Not sure that that is still the case.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Hmmmm...I hadn't thought of the possible point Wolfe may be making about
>>humanity and the ability to use tools. Is he asking whether the Annese's
>>inability to use tools prevents them from being human regardless of how
>>closely they mimic us?
>>
>>Is Wolfe taking on the Turing requirements for Artificial Intelligence [if 
>>a
>>machine is convincingly human enough, then it is self-aware] and applying
>>them to Biology?
>>
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