Comments on: Who Is Conscious? http://onphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/04/30/who-is-conscious/ In search of questions Wed, 24 Oct 2007 01:15:51 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Peter http://onphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/04/30/who-is-conscious/#comment-22 Peter Sun, 21 May 2006 20:21:13 +0000 https://onphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/04/30/who-is-conscious/#comment-22 Even though there are only finite number of words in the English language there are an infinite number of possible questions. Thus if the machine was working by look-up it would have to store an answer for each question if it was to pass the Turning test. If it could reason it wouldn’t need access to all known information anyways, since people often are ignorant, so the machine could perform intelligently simply by responding “I don’t know” in a consistent manner. Remember the Turing test is meant to reveal if the machine is conscious, not if it can answer correctly any question put to it. The ability to know the correct answer and the ability to answer intelligently are two separate things. Even though there are only finite number of words in the English language there are an infinite number of possible questions. Thus if the machine was working by look-up it would have to store an answer for each question if it was to pass the Turning test. If it could reason it wouldn’t need access to all known information anyways, since people often are ignorant, so the machine could perform intelligently simply by responding “I don’t know” in a consistent manner. Remember the Turing test is meant to reveal if the machine is conscious, not if it can answer correctly any question put to it. The ability to know the correct answer and the ability to answer intelligently are two separate things.

]]> By: Pi http://onphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/04/30/who-is-conscious/#comment-21 Pi Sun, 21 May 2006 19:58:56 +0000 https://onphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/04/30/who-is-conscious/#comment-21 I am not sure if I understand why there needs to be infinite memory for a machine to pass the turing test. Is it not enough for the machine to know all of the knowledge that the collective intelligence of the human race has? If so, doesn't the world wide web represent nearly all or most of it? (Atleast, can it not represent in the not so near future?) If so, can there not be an AI engine which is a computer with huge processing power and connected to the internet and thus has at its disposal all the knowledge that the human race has ever understood? Forgive me, if that was too naive. I am not sure if I understand why there needs to be infinite memory for a machine to pass the turing test. Is it not enough for the machine to know all of the knowledge that the collective intelligence of the human race has? If so, doesn’t the world wide web represent nearly all or most of it? (Atleast, can it not represent in the not so near future?)

If so, can there not be an AI engine which is a computer with huge processing power and connected to the internet and thus has at its disposal all the knowledge that the human race has ever understood? Forgive me, if that was too naive.

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