Can (non-human) machines think?

Alan Turing:
Computing Machinery and
Intelligence

What is a computer?
A person who makes calculations or computations; a
calculator, a reckoner; spec. a person employed to
make calculations in an observatory, in surveying,
etc. Now chiefly hist. [OED]
ENIAC: Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Computer (1946) was the worlds first electronic
Turing complete computer. [Wiki]
Logic Gate: A Simple Computer
More Gates, Smaller Package
30 years: 250,000 times more RAM
1985:
Kaypro: 64 KB RAM
2012:
Mac: 16 GB RAM
Could Computers Think?
What is thinking?
Turing means more than mere calculating.
What kinds of things can think?
Human beings?
Non-human animals?
Computers?
How can we tell if something can think?
How do I know if you are a thinking thing?
How do I know that you are conscious?
Turing:
The real question concerns how it is that we
can tell if something is thinking.
Turing offers a functional definition of
thinking:
A thing thinks if it meets the same behavioral
criteria as do the paradigm cases of thinking
things,
i.e., if it acts (in the relevant ways) the same way that
human beings act.
The Imitation Game:
Played with 3 people a man (A), a woman
(B), and an interrogator (C).
The interrogator stays in a room apart from
the other two.
The interrogator asks questions and tries to
determine, from the answers, which answerer
is the man and which is the woman.
Turings Strategy
Instead of asking whether or not a computer
can think,
How could we measure that?
Ask instead whether or not a computer could
successfully play the imitation game, and
fool a questioner trying to figure out which
answers come from a human.
This is at least something we can measure.
Turings Imitation Game
Can digital computers be made to play
satisfactorily the part of A in the imitation
game?
The new problem has the advantage of
drawing a fairly sharp line between the
physical and the intellectual capacities of a
man.
i.e., by looking at the answers provided (rather
than what the answerer looks like, etc.), it
focuses on what is essential to thinking.
Turing:
I believe that it will be possible to program
computers, with a storage capacity of 10
9
[i.e.,
10 gigabytes], to make them play the imitation
game so well that an average interrogator will
not have more than 70% chance of making the
right identification after five minutes of
questioning.
Turings Claim
Any computer (hardware plus software plus
data) that can successfully play the imitation
game
i.e., one that can provide answers to our questions
to it that we cant distinguish from the answers
provided by a human being
thinks!
I have no more reason to deny that it is
conscious or has inner states than I do to deny
that you do.
Turings Reasoning
The Imitation Game gives us a functional definition
(a behavioral criterion) for whether or not something
can think.
Since we cant look inside other peoples minds
this is the best criterion we can get.
If computers can successfully play the imitation
game, then they meet the behavioral criterion, and so
(we would have no reason to deny that) they think.
So, if it quacks like a duck, its a duck!
Objection: The Argument from
Consciousness
1) Only things which are conscious
(i.e., that have conscious mental states)
can think.
2) Computers are not conscious (i.e.,
do not have conscious mental states).
3) Therefore, computers cannot think.

Turings Response:
But how do we know that computers arent
conscious?
Isnt this essentially the same question we are discussing
i.e., whether or not computers can think?
The objection begs the question:
The real question is whether or not computers can be
conscious. The objection just assumes that they cannot.
How can we tell if other human beings are conscious
that other human beings can think?
Who thinks?
I am pretty sure that I think!
I am directly aware of my own thoughts.
How can I tell if someone (something) else
thinks?
If I need to be directly aware of their thoughts,
then I cant know anyone thinks except me.
If I dont need to be directly aware of their
thoughts, I must rely on observable criteria.
The Turing Test provides such criteria.
I Think: Do You?
The upshot:
I cant see anyones conscious mental states but
my own.
All I can see is their behavior (how they answer
questions, etc.).
If I judge that other people think, simply on the
basis of observing their behavior, without directly
seeing their conscious mental states, then I must
reach the same conclusion about computers.
Alternately put: If I deny that computers can think
because I cant see their inner states, then I will
have to deny that other humans can think, for the
same reason. This is solipsism.
Conclusion:
The criteria we in fact use to attribute thinking
(consciousness) to other human beings are behavioral.
These criteria concern linguistic behaviorhow a think talks, not what
it looks like.
If these are the criteria I use with other human beings, it would
be inconsistent to demand some higher standard of
computers.
So, if a computer could meet the same standards of linguistic
behavior as do other human beings (i.e., if it could
successfully play the imitation game), we must, on pain of
inconsistency, claim that it thinks, i.e., that it is conscious.
Underlying Assumptions?
Personal Reflections
How do we tell that some other being (human or
non-human) thinks or is conscious?
Is it really by observing their behavior?
Arent infants/pets aware of their parents/owners
emotions (mental states)?
Are they inferring this on the basis of the linguistic
behavior they observe?
Did you have to learn that others are conscious?