SGD125-01 Essay Topic 2

Familiarize yourself with the following exciting debates in the
field of natural and Artificial Intelligence:
· The Chinese Room Argument
· The Turing Test
· The Loebner Prize Competition
· The Symbol Grounding Problem

Publish your thoughts on the following questions:
· Is the Turing Test a good test for Intelligence? Why or Why not?

No, it is an interesting concept but not a truly good test for intelligence. Just because something can give the appearance of something else is not reason to declare it to be that something else. For example, there is a bug that was created with the look of a leaf. It can sway like a leaf being blown by the wind. It can hold onto the branch of a tree like a leaf. If someone were given certain means with which to examine and compare this bug with a real leaf (look through a window but don’t touch maybe) and asked to see if they could tell which was the leaf, would this prove that the bug was also capable of photosynthesis?
I do recognize that it is a good test as to whether or not a computer can give the appearance of intelligence, but beyond that I think it is stretching the results of The Turing Test to say it is measuring actual intelligence. According to dictionary.com, intelligence is: The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. The Turing Test may be able to measure acquired “knowledge”, but will the person asking questions really be able to tell if the person or computer on the other end of that response really understands how to apply the information that it is reciting?

· Will computers eventually be able to pass a CAPTCHA test? Why or Why not?

Yes, I think that computers will eventually be able to pass a CAPTCHA test. Greg Mori and Jitendra Malik claim they currently have an algorithm that will pass the EZ-Gimpy captcha test 92% of the time and the Gimpy captcha test 33% of the time. It uses some of the same ideas as “finding people in images, matching handwritten digits, and recognizing 3D objects”. If computers can already pass the EZ-Gimpy 92% of the time now, it probably won’t be long before it can do it all of the time.

· The Symbol Grounding Problem ->Take a concept from your everyday life, for example, drinking. Now try to make explicit what drinking means to you. You may be surprised how tightly concepts are tied to the body, are grounded in sensory motor experiences. Just to get you started, here are a few points. Drinking relates to liquids; liquids are kept in particular containers like cups or glasses. They can be hot or cold; if they are hot you can get burned. If you grasp the coffee cup, you move it to your mouth slowly. Why? Because you know that liquids spill when you move the cup fast. You then tilt the cup and move your lower lip forward so the liquid can drop into your mouth. You are applying the physical law that the surface of the liquid stays horizontal as the container moves. Then you sense the liquid and its temperature in your mouth, and perhaps in your throat and stomach. You also recognize various liquids by their specific reflective properties, viscosity, and so forth. This is what sensory-motor grounding is all about. Now try to do the same thing with an abstract concept, like responsibility.

Responsibility is related to obligation, commitment, and being the one that will make sure something happens, doesn’t happen, or is taken care of. Something can be the responsibility of one person or many. Responsibility assigns ownership of a task. The given task may range from a variety of things and is said to be the responsibility of that person or those people. For example: taking out the trash, showing up for work, paying debts, not harming other people, making legal decisions, whatever your job description is, and many other things. Responsibility can be ongoing like child support or span one specific point in time like showing up for an appointment.

Resources used:
- www.dictionary.com
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha#Originhttp://
- www.cs.sfu.ca/~mori/research/gimpy/