This essay is the continuation of Computing Machinery and Intelligence by A. M. Turing. In the Imitation Game section, Turing replaced the original question with which the article began, i.e., “Can machines think?”. This question got replaced by other questions, such as: Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played between a machine and a woman, as he does when the game is played between a man and a woman?
In the section ‘Critique of the New Problem,’ Turing explores whether this new question is a worthy one to investigate. He states that the new question has the advantage of drawing a fairly sharp line between a person’s physical and intellectual capacities. Turing emphasises that imitation of physical attribution is irrelevant to the problem of thinking. This emphasis can be seen in the conditions of the imitation game, where the interrogator is prevented from seeing, hearing, or touching those who are being interrogated. However, the imitation game has certain criticisms.
The game is criticised because the odds are weighted too heavily against the machine. For instance, if a man tries to pretend to be a machine, he would make a very poor showing and would be revealed immediately by his slowness and inaccuracy in arithmetic. This example demonstrates that the machine has a standard of performance (such as arithmetic speed) that humans cannot easily replicate, potentially making the test unfair.
Turing states that this objection is a very strong one. It suggests that machines carry out thinking, but it is very different from what a man does. However, Turing immediately offers a rebuttal to this objection. He goes on saying: if, despite this potential difference in method, a machine can be constructed to play the imitation game satisfactorily, then we need not be troubled by this objection. So, when playing the imitation game, the best strategy for the machine is to try to provide answers that would naturally be given by a man.
P.S. This post will be followed by additional posts on the other sections of “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.”
Sources
Computing Machinery and Intelligence by A. M. Turing (1950)
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