I have a habit of posting daily with long articles. But there is no reason not to post frequently with short commentary as well.
From Alan Turing: Intelligent Machinery
A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline is in effect a universal machine
Of course, you also need to know how to read and carry out the appripriate instructions, but these are supposed to be ‘mindless’ activities. Question: does Turing leave that bit out in the above quote? If not, is it part of the man, his tools, or his discipline?
Addendum from the same article:
Insofar as we are influenced by [arguments against machine intelligence], we are bound to be left feeling uneasy about the whole project, at any rate for the present. These arguments cannot be wholly ignored, because the idea of ‘intelligence’ is itself emotional rather than mathematical.
I’m not sure that I agree about the ‘mindless’ part. What makes an activity mindless? OR is it just the pejorative/colloquial use here?
Mindless in the sense of mechanical. Like “If ‘A’ appears on the tape, then replace it with ‘B’ and advance one space to the left” You can do it, or you can rig up some simple mechanism to do it. Turing’s suggestion is that, if the intelligence is anywhere, it isn’t at this basic level.