The Accidental Philosopher and One of the Hardest Problems in the World

Abstract

Given the difficulties of defining “machine” and “think”, Turing proposed to replace the question “Can machines think?” with a proxy: how well can an agent engage in sustained conversation with a human? Though Turing neither described himself as a philosopher nor published much on philosophical matters, his Imitation Game has stood the test of time. Most understood at that time that success would not come easy, but few would have guessed just how difficult engaging in ordinary conversation would turn out to be. Despite the proliferation of language processing tools, we have seen little progress towards doing well at the Imitation Game. Had Turing instead suggested ability at games or even translation as a proxy for intelligence, his paper might have been forgotten. We argue that these and related problems are amenable to mechanical, though sophisticated, formal techniques. Turing appears to have taken care to select sustained, productive conversation and that alone as his proxy. Even simple conversation challenges a machine to engage in the rich practice of human discourse in all its generality and variety.