Q1: From “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

On page 55, addresses what he refers to as the Theological Objection (while making a few slightly groundless assumptions that he admits as such), and compares God’s ability to create a being that is “evolved” enough to be given a soul, to our ability to create machines that can think and live. While he does admit that this would not usurp God’s power to create souls, this does begin to usurp His ability to create truly living things (as human beings merely procreate biologically). Given this, is Turing subtly implying a more humanist stance to our seemingly limitless ability to create more advanced thinking machines?

Q2: From “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”

Concerning the concept of the “child-machine”, Turing goes into great detail regarding the Teacher-Pupil relationship for this type of machine, but does not discuss other relationship types, or any other sensory environmental factors (other children/people, general surroundings, etc.) that children may typically be involved in during development. Wouldn’t the lack of these affect the accuracy and/or efficacy of this study, or are they irrelevant?

Q3: From “The Mathematics of Communication”

Is the communication problem of ‘semantics’ (and also ‘influence’/’effectiveness’, by extension) in its full nuance (as in, beyond simple language barriers and into complexities of social behavior, euphemism, emotion, etc.) something that only belongs to human communication, or can machines “mathematically” replicate it?

Computing Machinery and Intelligence page 61, Alan Turing said there were three components for imitating an adult human mind: initial state of the mind, education, experience. For the fear of highly developed AI now, will it be a solution that if we not trying to imitate a learning brain but a functioning brain which will response to outside but not going to have its own mind? All of the response from the AI is limited to the information/ acknowledge/ data we input. Later he divided them into two part: child’s brain and education. What is the difference between education and experience?

The Mathematics of Communication page 30, “the unit information indicating that in this situation one has an amount of freedom of choice, in selecting a message, which it is convenient to regard as a standard or unit amount.” How to define the standard of information? Since the information is from the freedom of choice, how to limit information to a standard from a non-boundary motion?

The Mathematics of Communication page 33, “the greater this freedom of choice, greater uncertainty and greater information all hand in hand…if noise is introduced… lead to increased uncertainly. But id the uncertainty is increased, the information is increased, and this sounds as though the noise were beneficial.” Freedom of choice and noise both can create uncertainty, then increase the information. Should the noise be eliminating in semantic process?

1. Warren Weaver mentioned in page 30 “the word information relates not so much to what you do say, as to what you could say. That is, information is a measure of your freedom of choice when you select a message.” He also mentioned that “information is associated with the amount of freedom of choice we have in constructing messages.” (pg 31) Does information purely depends on freedom of choice? Does noise plays a role in how information is communicated?
2. Weaver mentioned that noise cause certain distortions in a message. (pg. 32) What does it mean when he said, “But if the uncertainty is increased, the information is increased and this sounds as though the noise were beneficial.” Why does the information increased? And how is it beneficial? Noise might cause unexpected outcomes but how is that beneficial to the message?
3. Turing pointed out that everything really moves continuously and described computers that could converse fluidly. (pg. 57) He mentioned that even discrete state machines move continuously. Because the the outcomes and the initial state are so different, the intermediate states were often ignored. How does this affect the users? It is convenient if we can predict all the possible outcomes since it will always be a finite number.  What happen if there is a random element in the process? Will the machine still function the same?

1.Warren asserts that “about half are really controlled by the statistical structure of the language, although we are not ordinarily aware of it.”(p.34)
Why people unconsciously use redundancy words to write or speak ?

2.Turing talked about Professor Jefferson’s theory ” No mechanism could feel pleasure at its successes, grief when its valves fuse, be warmed by flattery …..”, also he asserted that “machine thinks is to be the machine and to feel oneself thinking. We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields.”(p56-57)
In 1996, we saw Deep Blue won its first game against a world champion. Is machine own its feel or not? How does this influence society or human?

3.Turing points out that “Most of the programmes which we can put into the machine will result in its doing something that we cannot make sense of at all, or which we regard as completely random behavior .” (p.63)
Nowadays, people lives can not without machine (smart phone, laptop), and programmes is important to people, how does Machine or programmes influence our daily lives?

The Mathematics of Communication, Warren Weaver.

1. Warren Weaver says,

“First off, we have to be clear about the rather strange way in which, in this theory, the word ‘information’ is used; for it has a special sense which, among other things, must not be confused at all with meaning.”

As people, we often associate meaning to information; even if we determine some information as having no meaning, we are assigning it a value of 0 meaning. However how can computers evaluate and determine meaning, and if they could, would it be in the same way that we determine meaning? Could computers communicate meaning in ways that are different than humans? Do computers “think” differently than humans?

Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Alan Turing

1. Alan Turing refutes the mathematical objection based on Gödel’s theorem by implying that machine’s can be just as fallible as humans when he says,

“…although it is established that there are limitations to the powers of any particular machine, it has only been stated, without any sort of proof, that no such limitations apply to the human intellect.”

To what extent are we seeing this with modern technology? What does this mean for our relationship with technology from here on out? Will “machine” intellect ever surpass the human intellect?

2. Is fallibility in a machine a good thing? Turing describes the scenario of having a machine play “the imitation game” and programming it to introduce mistakes in order to appear to be more human. He also explains the difference between errors of functioning and errors if conclusion. Should machines be programmed to leave room for errors of conclusion? What about errors of functioning? Even if a machine was programmed perfectly to never be able to make an error of conclusion, isn’t there still the possibility of errors of functioning dur to limitations of materials and wear over time?

1. Turing mentions on pages 56 and 57 that some argue a “thinking machine” will be easy to spot because it will not feel the emotions but simply make decisions. Is this what Turing means when he says that the question “can machines think” is problematic? That our preconceptions about what is “thought” is an issue, and he merely means that the machine can make a decision which it does independently of  some operator pushing a prescribed button and getting a prescribed result?
2. Turing discusses the idea that a thinking machine will not be a complete reproduction of a Human, but it’s own thing entirely. He talks about not comparing a man in a race to an aeroplane, and thus not judging a thinking machine on it’s inability to compete in a beauty pagent. He also says that the machine’s best strategy may actually be not to mimic man in the imitation game. Does this mean that thinking machines will never actually get so close to being human-like that it raises other issues, or have we simply surpassed Turing’s imagination of what a machine can accomplish due to the advancements in technology?
3. Weaver talks extensively about the entrophy of language, and of how this theory is applied to machines and to this “freedom of choice” which goes into the information source’s production of the signal. Is this entrophy the area where “thinking machines” has some room to generate thought? where we can start to “teach” a machine probabilities and it can select the most likely answers?

Computing Machinery and Intelligence – Alan Turing

Page 14: Instead of trying to produce a programme to simulate the adult mind. why not rather try to produce one which simulates the child’s? If this were then subjected to an appropriate course of education one would obtain the adult brain. Presumably the child-brain is something like a notebook as one buys it from the stationers

Following project is a working prototype, exactly in sync with Turing’s proposed methodology for constructing machines that could learn.

BabyX is an experimental computer generated psychobiological simulation of an infant which learns and interacts in real time:

Q As we are aware of the development in the area of machine learning it is not hard to visualize intelligent machines, deriving patterns from past records/experiences and resulting in optimum outcomes for the problem on hand, the question is, is intelligence in this sense equivalent to thinking?

Q Will machines that learn from humans, be a reflection of humans, imitating an aspect of human behavior? If yes, what aspect and what would be some implications of existence of such machines?

Q ‘Medium is the message’ – Marshall McLuhan. What is the message that these machines as mediums/interfaces bring forth? What could be the methodologies to investigate the effect of these mediums on society?

Q From a solipsist point of view, if machines think, will machines think of themselves as humans or superior to humans?

1. The Mathematics of Communication – pg 32 what was the significance of the C/H example given. where C = capacity and H = information source.
2. Computing Machinery – pg 58 – errors of function vs error of conclusion and the concept of Machines not being able to make errors is very interesting concept. does a computer programmed to make errors, fall under a computer actually just following orders?
3. Computing Machinery pg 59 “”This does not imply that it may not be
   possible to construct electronic equipment which will ‘think
   for itself, or in which, in biological terms, one could set up a
   conditioned reflex, which would serve as a basis for ‘learning.’ – We keep asking the question ‘ can a machine one day think for itself’ but if the computer is powerful enough to perfectly replicate thought, does it matter if the computer is not alive? (if a computer can perform just like a human brain but without a soul, maybe the soul isnt so important)

01_Weaver_throughout the article, Weaver discusses the mathematical and engineering implications of transmission of information. Towards the end, he hints that such a system of transmission, based on probability and entropy, can also be applied to the meaning of such information. Can the same mathematical system be applied to convey meaning? Is it a codification of words, or does it also code inflection, facial expression and emotion, or abstraction?

02_Turing_pg58_Turing raises the point about a machine being able to enjoy strawberries and cream. To me, this enjoyment comes from an emotional response in humans. Could a machine be programmed to experience emotions? If you’re told what to feel, are you truly feeling that emotion? Is emotion separate from thinking and thought?

03_Turning_pg58-59_The Lady Lovelace objection is something that I’m still not completely sold on. Indeed, Turing acknowledges his own replay does not satisfy everyone. In regards to the imitation game, are you programming the machine to ‘think’? or are you simply programming it to play a game? Is there a victory in knowing you programmed a machine to win a game? or does it only prove machines are designed to accomplish a task and nothing more?

1. MOC. “Entrophy” was mentioned quite often in the passage, and my understanding is that it meant “randomness” and or “Sporadicness” and my question is “can information be truly random?” Entrophy relates to communication theory and how it should be associated with the amount of freedom of choice we have in constructing messages but do we really have this so-called freedom when it is given to us at random. In computation, isn’t randomness theory, Nothing is ever purely random, We as humans can get close to randomness but never achieve its aura. Its the doppelganger of “perfection”, it can never truly never be achieved, no one can truly be perfect as to someone can never truly be random. Kind of unclear on this subject on enthrophy and how it relates back to “free-will”.(Descartes?). Is there randomness in our society today? its seems to be more organized and controlled on how we receive our information, especially in the past with propaganda in other nations.
2. CM&I. NERVOUS SYSTEM. I agree with the agreement with that a computer can not mimic a “nervous system”. With its fragileness and delicate nature to mimic it only would end in failure for the computing machine. I feel as there are things beyond our knowledge of a nervous system that even humans can not understand. Even with machines being an expression of humanism, even our prodigies (computers) cannot reach the status of the Bio-realms. I don’t know if this is exactly what was being portrayed in the Nervous system paragraph but this thought branched from the idea of a nervous system being replicated and or mimic. Being the nervous system is a not a discrete-state machine I’d agree with the statement of a machine not being able to mimic it down to a tee.
3. Quote: “If each man had a definite set of rules of conduct by which he regulated his life he would be no better than a machine. But there are no such rules, so men cannot be machines”. I know this is just a representation of an argument but this statement seems to go both ways. There seems to be no right or wrong. In one sense, with laws that man/woman have made up for themselves( humanic systems) one could say that man could be a machine and vice versa. Presently, It doesn’t seem far-fetched that “men” can be machines” and I would say that humans are on the verge of being able to make machines more and more human-like day by day. Just wanted to hear everyone’s opinion on this matter.