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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6315373" data-attributes="member: 177">In the paper I reference above, Turing suggested the &quot;imitation game&quot;:&quot;The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the 'imitation game.&quot; It is played with three people, a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex. The interrogator stays in a room apart front the other two. The object of the game for the interrogator is to determine which of the other two is the man and which is the woman. He knows them by labels X and Y, and at the end of the game he says either &quot;X is A and Y is B&quot; or &quot;X is B and Y is A.&quot; The interrogator is allowed to put questions to A and B thus:C: Will X please tell me the length of his or her hair?Now suppose X is actually A, then A must answer. It is A's object in the game to try and cause C to make the wrong identification. His answer might therefore be:&quot;My hair is shingled, and the longest strands are about nine inches long.&quot;In order that tones of voice may not help the interrogator the answers should be written, or better still, typewritten. The ideal arrangement is to have a teleprinter communicating between the two rooms. Alternatively the question and answers can be repeated by an intermediary. The object of the game for the third player (B) is to help the interrogator. The best strategy for her is probably to give truthful answers. She can add such things as &quot;I am the woman, don't listen to him!&quot; to her answers, but it will avail nothing as the man can make similar remarks.We now ask the question, &quot;What will happen when a machine takes the part of A in this game?&quot; Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is played between a man and a woman? These questions replace our original, &quot;Can machines think?&quot;Then later, as I quoted, he posits:&quot;I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible, to programme computers, with a storage capacity of about 10^9, to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70 per cent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning.&quot; Note that he's not saying that this would indicate that the machine was thinking!&nbsp; He was just predicting that playing the game that well would be possible by the year 2000.&nbsp; As mentioned - Turing felt that &quot;thinking&quot; was not a measurable thing*. By extension, &quot;sentience&quot; is similarly not measurable.&nbsp; Sentience is like pornography - we can't define it, but we know it when we see it.&nbsp; You can think of the Turing Test as just a framing of that observation.*He said, &quot;The original question, 'Can machines think?' I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion. &quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 6315373, member: 177"] In the paper I reference above, Turing suggested the "imitation game": [I]"The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the 'imitation game." It is played with three people, a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex. The interrogator stays in a room apart front the other two. The object of the game for the interrogator is to determine which of the other two is the man and which is the woman. He knows them by labels X and Y, and at the end of the game he says either "X is A and Y is B" or "X is B and Y is A." The interrogator is allowed to put questions to A and B thus: C: Will X please tell me the length of his or her hair? Now suppose X is actually A, then A must answer. It is A's object in the game to try and cause C to make the wrong identification. His answer might therefore be: "My hair is shingled, and the longest strands are about nine inches long." In order that tones of voice may not help the interrogator the answers should be written, or better still, typewritten. The ideal arrangement is to have a teleprinter communicating between the two rooms. Alternatively the question and answers can be repeated by an intermediary. The object of the game for the third player (B) is to help the interrogator. The best strategy for her is probably to give truthful answers. She can add such things as "I am the woman, don't listen to him!" to her answers, but it will avail nothing as the man can make similar remarks. We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes the part of A in this game?" Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is played between a man and a woman? These questions replace our original, "Can machines think?"[/I] Then later, as I quoted, he posits: [I]"I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible, to programme computers, with a storage capacity of about 10^9, to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70 per cent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning." [/I] Note that he's not saying that this would indicate that the machine was thinking! He was just predicting that playing the game that well would be possible by the year 2000. As mentioned - Turing felt that "thinking" was not a measurable thing*. By extension, "sentience" is similarly not measurable. Sentience is like pornography - we can't define it, but we know it when we see it. You can think of the Turing Test as just a framing of that observation. *He said, [I]"The original question, 'Can machines think?' I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion. "[/i] [/QUOTE]

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