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| 3979 | The Turing Machine is the best idea yet about how the mind works |
| Full Idea: Alan Turing had (in his theory of the 'Turing Machine') what I suppose is the best thought about how the mind works that anyone has had so far. | |||
| From: comment on Alan Turing (Computing Machinery and Intelligence [1950]) by Jerry A. Fodor - Jerry A. Fodor on himself p.296 | |||
| A reaction: I am not convinced, because I don't think rationality is possible without consciousness. The brain may bypass the representations used by a computer. |
| 5321 | In 50 years computers will successfully imitate humans with a 70% success rate |
| Full Idea: In about fifty years' time it will be possible to program computers to 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. | |||
| From: Alan Turing (Computing Machinery and Intelligence [1950], p.57), quoted by Robert Kirk - Mind and Body §5.9 | |||
| A reaction: This is the famous prophecy called 'The Turing Test'. The current state (2004) seems to be that the figure of 70% is very near, but no one sees much prospect of advancing much further in the next 100 years. Dennett sees jokes as a big problem. |