Turing
William P Loftus
I'm looking for a definition of Turing; can anyone give me
a few references?
--
William P Loftus UUCP: wpl@burdvax, sword@excalibur
SDC R&D/Software Technology ARPA:
Paoli, PA 19301 BITNET:
215-648-7222 (work)
215-646-8434 (home)
215-628-2067 (home, yet again)
Disclaimer : I hereby deny it.
Don Steiny
>
> I'm looking for a definition of Turing; can anyone give me
> a few references?
>
commited suicide in 1954 over hassels brought on by the discovery
that he was a homosexual.
His contributions are the base of modern computation. Turing
machines, abstract mathematical models he invented, have been proved
to be equivilant to any computer. The definition of an algorithm
is "a Turing machine that stops."
The book about him is *Alan Turing - the enigma*, by Andrew Hodges.
It was published in 1983 by Simon and Schuster."
Here is his famous paper from which the idea of a "Turing
Test" is derived:
____________________________________________________________
THE IMITATION GAME
A. M. Turing[1]
I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'
This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the
terms 'machine' and 'think'. The definitions might be
framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of
the words, but this attitude is dangerous. If the meaning
of the words 'machine' and 'think' are to be found by exa-
mining how they are commonly used it is difficult to escape
the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to the ques-
tion, 'Can machines think?' is to be sought in a statistical
survey such as a Gallup poll. But this is absurd. Instead
of attempting such a definition I shall replace the question
by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed
in relatively unambiguous words.
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 interroga-
tor (C) who may be of either sex. The interrogator stays in
a room apart from 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 interro-
gator 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
____________________
The Imitation Game, A. M. Turing; *The Compleat Computer*, Den-
nie L. Van Tassel (UCSC), S.R.A. inc. p.165
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 interro-
gator 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?'
CRITIQUE OF THE NEW PROBLEM.
As well as asking, 'What is the answer to this new form of
the question', one may ask, 'Is this new question a worthy
one to investigate?' This latter question we investigate
without further ado, thereby cutting short an infinite
regress.
The new problem has the advantage of drawing a fairly
sharp line between the physical and the intellectual capaci-
ties of a man. No engineer or chemist claims to be able to
produce a material which is indistinguishable from the human
skin. It is possible that at some time this might be done,
but even supposing this invention available we should feel
there was little point in trying to make a 'thinking
machine' more human by dressing it up in such artificial
flesh. The form in which we have set the problem reflects
this fact in the condition which prevents the interrogator
from seeing or touching the other competitors, or hearing
their voices. Some other advantages of the proposed cri-
terion may be shown up by specimen questions and answers.
Thus:
Q: Please write me a sonnet on the subject of the Forth
Bridge.
A: Count me out on this one. I could never write poetry.
Q: Add 34957 to 70764
A: (Pause about 30 seconds and then give as answer) 105621.
Q: Do you play chess?
A: Yes.
Q: I have K at my K1, and no other pieces. You have only K
at K6 and R at R1. It is your move. What do you play?
A: (After a pause of 15 seconds) R-R8 mate.
The question and answer method seems to be suitable for
introducing almost any one of the fields of human endeavor
that we wish to include. We do not wish to penalise the
machine for its inability to shine in beauty competitions,
nor to penalise a man for losing a race against an aero-
plane. The conditons of our game make these disabilities
irrelevant. The 'witnesses' can brag, if they consider it
advisable, as much as they please about their charms,
strength or heroism, but the interrogator cannot demand
practical demonstrations.
The game may perhaps be criticised on the ground that
the odds are weighted too heavily against the machine. If
the man were to try and pretend to be the machine he would
clearly make a very poor showing. He would be given away at
once by slowness and inaccuracy in arithmetic. May not
machines carry out something which ought to be described as
thinking but which is very different from what a man does?
This objection is a very strong one, but at least we can say
that if, nevertheless, a machine can be constructed to play
the imitation game satisfactorily, we need not be troubled
by this objection.
It might be urged that when playing the 'imitation
game' the best strategy for the machine may possibly be
something other than imitation of the behavior of a man.
This may be, but I think it is unlikely that there is any
great effect of this kind. In any case there is no intention
to investigate here the theory of the game, and it will be
assumed that the best strategy is to try to provide answers
that would naturally be given by a man.
____________________________________________________________
Turing is one of the famous fathers of modern comput-
ing. This article is also famous among computer circles.
The game refered to here is called "Turing's test," and is a
goal of many researchers. So far, no one has achieved this
goal, there are still no computer programs that can fool a
person into thinking that they are talking to a human.
--
scc!steiny
Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software
109 Torrey Pine Terrace
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
(408) 425-0382
pere...@utai.uucp
Toronto by professors R.C. Holt and J.R. Cordy (currently at Queen's
University, Kingston, Ontario). Turing is easier to use than BASIC and
supports a richer set of instructions than Pascal. It has been the main
teaching language at the University of Toronto since 1983 and has been used
to teach over 10,000 students here and at York University. It is also used
at a few other universities in various courses.
For more information, you can contact:
distrib@utcsri
CSRI Distribution Manager
University of Toronto
10 King's College Rd, SF2002
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A4
Information available includes technical reports:
The Turing Language Report, CSRI-153
Design Goals for the Turing Programming Language, CSRI-187
Features of the Turing Programming Language, CSRI-186
The Formal Semantics of Turing Programs, CSRI-182
You can also request a copy of the PC-Turing Interpreter Demo Diskette for
IBM PC compatibles running MS-DOS with at least 512K RAM.
--
Stephen Perelgut Computer Systems Research Institute, University of Toronto
Licence is granted to retransmit this message so long as the body, Subject,
addressee's and sender are not altered in any way. This message is not to
be transmitted to anyone other than the original adressee's.
Naim Abdullah
>In article <27...@burdvax.UUCP>, w...@burdvax.UUCP (William P Loftus) writes:
>>
>> a few references?
>>
Yes Alan Turing was a person but I think the original poster was referring
to the Turing programming language (since it was posted in net.lang).
Turing (which was named in honour of Alan Turing) is a general purpose
programming language. Although it was designed mainly for teaching, it
is flexible enough to be used in production work.
It was designed by Holt & Cordy at the Universit of Toronto in 1983 (I
think). I have used Turing (having been a student at U. of T.) and
can testify that it has a nice, clean syntax and it is a pleasure to
write programs in it. It grows on you very well.
You can obtain information about Turing by sending mail to:
ihnp4!utcsri!distrib (or try utcsri!turing)
Turing also has a formal airtight description and a textbook describing
it. No doubt somebody from U. of T. can give you the exact refs.
Disclaimer: I am not associated in any way with U. of T.or Turing other
than having used Turing during my undergraduate years.
Naim Abdullah
Dept. of EECS,
Northwestern University
{ ihnp4, chinet }!nucsrl!naim
Kim Fabricius Storm
> Here is his famous paper from which the idea of a "Turing
>Test" is derived:
> THE IMITATION GAME
> A. M. Turing[1]
>I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'
>This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the
>terms 'machine' and 'think'.
> ...
> But this is absurd. Instead
>of attempting such a definition I shall replace the question
>by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed
>in relatively unambiguous words.
>
> ...
The use of Turing's test for deciding the answer to the question
"Can machines think?" was recently rejected by Peter Naur in an
article published in "BIT 26 (1986), pp. 175-187". To quote
from the conclusion of the article:
(1) [...] the phrase "Can X think?" is [...] meaningless
for any X. (2) The restirctions imposed on [...] Turing's
test [...] have no relation to any humanoid characteristics.
(3) The awareness that each of us has of our fellow being's
nature [...] cannot be reduced to, or expressed in terms
of, any particular tests or games.
The article is highly recommended!
--
Kim F. Storm, st...@diku.UUCP (seismo!mcvax!diku!storm)
Institute of Datalogy(=CS), U of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 1, DK-2100 OE