02-03-2015, 11:59 AM
I think that part of the point of the Turing test as a gedankenexperiment is to emphasise the point that telling whether something other than you (anything else, including another human) is "really" conscious is an impossibility.
Typing words on this forum and getting answers is in itself an impromptu Turing test. I've never met anyone else on this forum in the flesh (at least, not knowingly) so from my point of view the entire forum could be a hyper-complex weak AI designed to fool me into thinking there are real people typing their replies. (I hope it is obvious that I don't really think that!)
And even if you are talking to another human - still, there is the possibility that the other human is actually an extremely carefully programmed zombie with no actual consciousness. Barring telepathy, there is no way to know.
But none of that matters. "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck then it's a duck." Consciousness is arguably irrelevant to AI discussions.
Typing words on this forum and getting answers is in itself an impromptu Turing test. I've never met anyone else on this forum in the flesh (at least, not knowingly) so from my point of view the entire forum could be a hyper-complex weak AI designed to fool me into thinking there are real people typing their replies. (I hope it is obvious that I don't really think that!)
And even if you are talking to another human - still, there is the possibility that the other human is actually an extremely carefully programmed zombie with no actual consciousness. Barring telepathy, there is no way to know.
But none of that matters. "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck then it's a duck." Consciousness is arguably irrelevant to AI discussions.