Consciousness and the Turing Test
(Beyond Ourselves #01)
What's in the series? Next: Are robots people?
Bletchley Park was the top secret home of British efforts to break enemy codes during World War Two. One of the leaders of the code-breaking team was Alan Turing, the mathematician and computer pioneer. Turing is also famous for devising the ‘Turing test’ for Artificial Intelligence.
But people today often misunderstand what the Turing test means: He was not saying that a machine that can pass the test is conscious like a human being. He was comparing the machine’s ability to process information with a human being. This does not say anything about whether or not the machine is conscious.
Perhaps part of our problem is with how we understand what it means to be conscious. We will explore this further in future videos, as we look at whether human nature points to a deeper story beyond ourselves.
To respond to this video go to www.facebook.com/godnewevidence.
