The Turing Test does illustrate one thing further than the ability of modern machines to trick us into various things. The test shows just how important the quality and depth of information provided t
The Turing Test does illustrate one thing further than the ability of modern machines to trick us into various things. The test shows just how important the quality and depth of information provided to a system is, in regard to the quality and depth of the behavior we can reasonably expect of a system; blind people cant know about colour, after all.
Designing a computer to play chess is a relatively easy task - a chess board has sixty-four squares, there are a maximum of thirty-two pieces on the board. A chess-playing machine doesnt need to know anything else about the world to play chess and the range of behavior we expect from a chess computer is very limited - it wont offer opinions on last nights movie, for instance. If we do want a system that can be a film critic all on its own, however, its obviously going to need a lot more basic data from the world, and even just the film itself wouldnt be enough.
In AI parlance the way in which a system, be that a person, insect, computer program, robot or whatever else is able to receive information from, and interact with, the world is referred to as how the system is embodied. We receive all our information about the world through our body and its various senses; we interact with the world through our body. For a computer to be able to hold a meaningful conversation with us about last nights film, the colour of the sunset, some poetry, or other such abstract and difficult to define topics, the computer will need a richness in its sensory and behavioral possibilities that compares with our own. One of the points made frequently in science fiction is that, if humanity were to encounter other intelligent life, we may not have enough in common with them to share anything, or even recognize the occurrence; so it is with AI. If we are to build artificial intelligences we stand a far better chance of being able to recognize and communicate with them if they inhabit a sensory world that is similar to our own. Clearly, conversation with a chess computer is out.