Here is a simple algorithm that passes Turing test:
Using [EDIT: random] quantum events, generate random bits and send them to output.
In some Everett branches this algorithm passes the test.
(Somewhat related: If Mr. Searle shows me a “giant lookup table” which passes the Turing test and asks me whether it is intelligent, my response will be: “Stop playing silly games and show me the algorithm that created the lookup table.”)
Here is a simple algorithm that passes Turing test:
(But mostly doesn’t, with confidence much more reliable than the expected variability of any given Turing tester.)
Using quantum events, generate random bits and send them to output.
In some Everett branches this algorithm passes the test.
Incidentally the same algorithm (combined with some kind of synthesising device) can also create an actual living creature that we would expect (and desire) to pass such a test. This is just (even more) ridiculously unlikely (and/or occurs in less descendant Everett branches depending on nomenclature.)
I assume (and imply that it would be better) that you intent the ‘random bits’ part to be the important point more so than the ‘quantum’ part? Considering random ‘passing’ output reminds us that there are certain limits to the strength of the conclusions we can draw from such a test. The ‘quantum’ part just prevents distracting side-tracks like passing the buck to the pseudo-random number generator. ie. I would consider your point to be almost as strong even if the universe went around collapsing away those ‘Everett branches’ and you had to speak of “sometimes” instead of “In some Everett branches”.
You are right. My point was that there are two ways how a “giant lookup table” could pass a Turing test.
a) It could be constructed by an enormous superhuman intelligence, in which case stop speaking about the table and show me the intelligence that created it.
b) It just got lucky… which proves nothing, because if you are lucky enough, you can pass the Turing test without the lookup table, just by sending random bits to the output.
b) It just got lucky… which proves nothing, because if you are lucky enough, you can pass the Turing test without the lookup table, just by sending random bits to the output.
In this case the game of ‘find the intelligence’ traces back through the random algorithm and to the person who selected the overwhelmingly improbable random outcome out of the set of possible random outcomes. That is, the algorithm that has produced apparently conscious output and can be said to result in a pass in the Turing Test is any algorithm that can take the string “imagine that you have a random bitstring that happens to look like it is conscious” and create imaginary bitstrings that instantiate that.
b) It just got lucky… which proves nothing, because if you are lucky enough, you can pass the Turing test without the lookup table, just by sending random bits to the output.
It ‘proves nothing’ in the same way that all of science has proved nothing. “If we are lucky enough” every experimental test we have done to conclude that gravity exists could have resulted from a physics where mass is constantly accelerated in random directions. If so, let’s hope that our luck keeps holding...
Demonstrating that something is overwhelmingly likely is, indeed, a different thing than proving that something has probability zero. But it is still rather useful information.
Here is a simple algorithm that passes Turing test:
Using [EDIT: random] quantum events, generate random bits and send them to output.
In some Everett branches this algorithm passes the test.
(Somewhat related: If Mr. Searle shows me a “giant lookup table” which passes the Turing test and asks me whether it is intelligent, my response will be: “Stop playing silly games and show me the algorithm that created the lookup table.”)
(But mostly doesn’t, with confidence much more reliable than the expected variability of any given Turing tester.)
Incidentally the same algorithm (combined with some kind of synthesising device) can also create an actual living creature that we would expect (and desire) to pass such a test. This is just (even more) ridiculously unlikely (and/or occurs in less descendant Everett branches depending on nomenclature.)
I assume (and imply that it would be better) that you intent the ‘random bits’ part to be the important point more so than the ‘quantum’ part? Considering random ‘passing’ output reminds us that there are certain limits to the strength of the conclusions we can draw from such a test. The ‘quantum’ part just prevents distracting side-tracks like passing the buck to the pseudo-random number generator. ie. I would consider your point to be almost as strong even if the universe went around collapsing away those ‘Everett branches’ and you had to speak of “sometimes” instead of “In some Everett branches”.
You are right. My point was that there are two ways how a “giant lookup table” could pass a Turing test.
a) It could be constructed by an enormous superhuman intelligence, in which case stop speaking about the table and show me the intelligence that created it.
b) It just got lucky… which proves nothing, because if you are lucky enough, you can pass the Turing test without the lookup table, just by sending random bits to the output.
In this case the game of ‘find the intelligence’ traces back through the random algorithm and to the person who selected the overwhelmingly improbable random outcome out of the set of possible random outcomes. That is, the algorithm that has produced apparently conscious output and can be said to result in a pass in the Turing Test is any algorithm that can take the string “imagine that you have a random bitstring that happens to look like it is conscious” and create imaginary bitstrings that instantiate that.
It ‘proves nothing’ in the same way that all of science has proved nothing. “If we are lucky enough” every experimental test we have done to conclude that gravity exists could have resulted from a physics where mass is constantly accelerated in random directions. If so, let’s hope that our luck keeps holding...
Demonstrating that something is overwhelmingly likely is, indeed, a different thing than proving that something has probability zero. But it is still rather useful information.