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| Alan Turing |
In 1950, the English
mathematician and chemist Alan Turing tried to define the conditions so that it
would be possible to affirm that a machine is capable of thinking like us. For
Turing, this will be achieved when the machine is capable of deceiving human
beings, making them think that it is one of them. This test is called the imitation game.
I have talked about this in a previous
post in this blog.
In 1956, Arthur
Samuel of IBM built a program to play the game called draughts or checkers. The
program kept information about the moves in the games it had played, which was
used to modify its future moves (in other words, it learned). In a few years, after playing many games, the
program was able to defeat its creator and played reasonably well in official
championships.
That same year, during
a summer course held in Dartmouth College, John McCarthy and other computer
pioneers coined the term artificial intelligence. Getting their hopes
too high, they predicted spectacular advances for the next ten years, which did
not take place in the time envisaged, but much later. I have also written about
this in another
post.
In 1963, science
fiction writer Fred Saberhagen published the first story of his famous series about
the berserkers,
autonomous and intelligent space fortresses created by an ancient
extraterrestrial civilization to exterminate intelligent life wherever it
appears in the galaxy. This story, titled Without a thought, is an answer to the Turing
Test and a brake to the unbridled hopes of the inventors of the term artificial intelligence. This is
the plot of the story:
A spaceship manned by
a human pilot must face a berserker, who uses mental waves against him to prevent
his thinking. To check if these waves are effective, the berserker proposes to
play several runs of a game very similar to checkers. Its intention is to
discover if it is facing a human being, or a more or less automatic device.
That is, the berserker wants to perform the Turing test on the pilot. Aware that, when his mind is affected by the waves, he won’t be able to play, the
pilot provides detailed instructions to a genetically manipulated animal that
accompanies him on board. As it is not intelligent, the animal is immune to mental waves, but it has the ability to obey orders literally, without
understanding what it is doing. The instructions are so good, that the
animal manages to play increasingly better games and is successful with the
Turing test, which deceives the berserker and makes it believe that it is confronting
a human being, and therefore that the Earth ship is not unmanned (which it is),
so the berserker does not dare to attack it.
The use by
Saberhagen of an improved animal is quite clever. It is evident that this
animal represents a computer (an entity capable of executing instructions
without understanding them), but the fact that it is not a computer makes the
situation clearer. The animal does
not learn to play checkers, it simply executes its orders to the
letter. But the orders it receives include elements of automatic learning that make
it possible to play better and better games against the berserker. The fact
that the orders are outside the body of the animal, drawn on paper, and as balls
inside boxes, makes the parallel clearer, since we tend to identify the
computer with its program, simply because the program is inside the body of the
computer (i.e. its hardware).
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| Fred Saberhagen |
The use by
Saberhagen of a game similar to checkers is significant, as it is an obvious
reference to the Arthur Samuel program. The interesting thing about the story
is that it makes very clear that the
instructions to play checkers, and
the learning process that eventually allows the animal to end in a draw
all the games played against the berserker, are both parts of the same program,
and therefore the merit belongs to the man who designed them, not to the
animal, who just obeys orders. The
intelligence is in the programmer, not in the executor of the instructions.
In other words:
Saberhagen criticizes the Turing Test and shows that it is possible for a computer (or a genetically manipulated
animal) to succeed without being
intelligent, just because it has been well programmed. Which is
obviously true.
We can now see the extremely
apt title given by Saberhagen to his story: Without a thought. It means
that the animal performs the Turing test successfully without having had a single thought. So the Turing test does
not really prove the intelligence of computers, just that of their programmers.
The same post in Spanish
Thematic thread on Natural and Artificial Intelligence: Preceding Next
Manuel Alfonseca
Hello. First of all I wish to thank Professor Alfonseca for this excellent article, and the thank you note, with which I have given. I needed this boost, because today was a test of English and was very very concerned. I am also very happy that you liked so much history, which I recommended him. I would like to thank you publicly, although she does not know me Sandra Miesel and Ignatius Press Publisher, because thanks to a link from the own Sandra Miesel get to know Fred Saberhagen, and other writers of science fiction, and fantasy Catholic. I share the link with you http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/smiesel_sfintervw1_mar05.asp in Comic Castilla had the opportunity to buy a few stories of Fred Saberhagen on their famous wars published in the publishing house Edoria, Berserkers Since it faced the humans with machines called the Berserkers. Tends to be rare, in an anthology of short stories all or almost to the stories were good. Except for one that I didn't like. Knowing the passion, Professor Alfonseca and I we share by science fiction writers and Catholic fantasy is so eagerly recommended. When he finally decided to read it this story impressed him. Me like me, but I was not aware of its importance until my friend told me. This writer also in that collection had stories, which tributed the victory of Lepanto, where appeared characters that tributes to Philip II (though unfortunately here Saberhagen was carried away by the black legend, was not faithful to the historical reality), although If what was when invented Mitchell Spain (Cervantes), and its hero Johann Karlsen (inspired by Don John of Austria, perhaps along with "jeromin" of the father Coloma, and "The last cross" of Louis de Wohl is the best portrait which has been made of Don John of Austria). Besides that I have read this wonderful author of Norwegian descent the very interesting have read you the very interesting "pyramids", and another novel of the cycle of the "Berserker wars", I'm trying my friend Professor Alfonseca to read, called "Brother Assasin" that talks about one of the most controversial and stormy in the relationship between Science and faith. The Galileo affair, and is very interesting answer, which gives this matter Saberhagen. Do not discard, certainly write another article the Alfonseca Professor inspired by another story from this writer. Apart from this Saberhagen wrote novels of fantasy as your cycle of swords, and novels about the count Drácula, giving a twist to the myth, being the good, Dracula and his enemies or very bad or very dumb (something which by the way also made Kim Newman with "Anno Dracula"), and which inspired the Dracula of Bram Stoker of Francis Ford Copolla film I take the speaker, I offered my friend the Professor Alfonseca, to encourage to be editing the rest of the works of Fred Saberhagen in In Spanish. Also take this opportunity to thank my friend for gratitude (I finally made my small contribution to the world of science). On the question of Turing when he was a professor at the colegio La Salle I speak of victory of a computer against Gary Kaspárov, and rightly said that Professor, that computer won you, because someone gave the data, so the computer could earn Gary Kasparov. My conclusion is the same still are far of the machines move to humans, and if they do is by the help of a huge team of human beings. Take this opportunity finally to thank the Dr. Juan de el Río Hortega Bereciartu for allowing me to write on this blog. Carefully Fonch. PD. I share this link on my twitter account and my account on Facebook.
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