The Turing Test: What Does it Accomplish?
The growth of technology over the past several decades has brought about immense inquiry regarding the intelligence, awareness, and consciousness of computers and other forms of technology. From the Jetsons, and Star Wars, to iRobot and Westworld, society has been enthralled with the potentiality of computers possessing human-like qualities; or even having the ability to think on their own. Decades before the growth of technology and the development of computers we have today, a British mathematician, Alan Turing, proposed a test to “determine whether a computer can think or not” (Lawhead, 2011, p. 251). This test, later coined the Turing Test, involves a human judge who interacts with either a …show more content…
Searles goes on to explain that computers cannot have intelligence because they lack intentionality. Intentionality is explained as “mental states (such as beliefs) by which they are directed at or are about objects or states of affairs in the world” (Lawhead, 2010, p. 256). Searles believes that a computer lacks intentionality in that it can manipulate symbols but does not have the causal powers to truly understand what the symbols mean. Intentionality is what separates the act of thinking from the forces that act upon why we are thinking what we are thinking. The Turing test does not measure intentionality, it measures the ability for a computer to act in a way that would convince another person that is not a computer. The Turing Test does not imply an understanding of what it means to be human, have believes, or have a full understanding of the outside work; it only implies that it can imitate the cognitive processes of humans that it is been programed to understand. If intentionality goes beyond answering a question in a way it should be answered rather than answering a question in the way it wants to answer, then it does not show intentionality and thus does not show whether a computer is intelligence; only that it can
The growth of technology over the past several decades has brought about immense inquiry regarding the intelligence, awareness, and consciousness of computers and other forms of technology. From the Jetsons, and Star Wars, to iRobot and Westworld, society has been enthralled with the potentiality of computers possessing human-like qualities; or even having the ability to think on their own. Decades before the growth of technology and the development of computers we have today, a British mathematician, Alan Turing, proposed a test to “determine whether a computer can think or not” (Lawhead, 2011, p. 251). This test, later coined the Turing Test, involves a human judge who interacts with either a …show more content…
Searles goes on to explain that computers cannot have intelligence because they lack intentionality. Intentionality is explained as “mental states (such as beliefs) by which they are directed at or are about objects or states of affairs in the world” (Lawhead, 2010, p. 256). Searles believes that a computer lacks intentionality in that it can manipulate symbols but does not have the causal powers to truly understand what the symbols mean. Intentionality is what separates the act of thinking from the forces that act upon why we are thinking what we are thinking. The Turing test does not measure intentionality, it measures the ability for a computer to act in a way that would convince another person that is not a computer. The Turing Test does not imply an understanding of what it means to be human, have believes, or have a full understanding of the outside work; it only implies that it can imitate the cognitive processes of humans that it is been programed to understand. If intentionality goes beyond answering a question in a way it should be answered rather than answering a question in the way it wants to answer, then it does not show intentionality and thus does not show whether a computer is intelligence; only that it can