more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
One may conceive of a machine made so as to emit words, and even emit them in response to a change in its bodily organs, such as being touched, but not to reply to the sense of everything said in its presence, as the most unintelligent men can.
Gist of Idea
A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation
Source
René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.56)
Book Ref
Descartes,René: 'Discourse on Method/The Meditations', ed/tr. Sutcliffe,F.E. [Penguin 1968], p.74
A Reaction
A critique of the Turing Test, written in 1637! You have to admire. Because of the advent of the microprocessor, we can 'conceive' more sophisticated, multi-level machines than Descartes could come up with.
| 3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
| 5321 | In 50 years computers will successfully imitate humans with a 70% success rate [Turing] |
| 3382 | A machine with a mind might still fail the Turing Test [Kim] |
| 3383 | The Turing Test is too specifically human in its requirements [Kim] |
| 3178 | A fast machine could pass all behavioural tests with a vast lookup table [Block, by Rey] |
| 6656 | The Turing test is too behaviourist, and too verbal in its methods [Lowe] |