SaidAchmiz comments on The flawed Turing test: language, understanding, and partial p-zombies - Less Wrong

11 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 17 May 2013 02:02PM

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Comment author: SaidAchmiz 20 May 2013 04:01:11PM 0 points [-]

For example, what if I told you that in reality, I don't speak a word of English ? Whom are you going to believe -- me, or your lying eyes ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd0tTl0nxU0

Comment author: DavidS 22 May 2013 09:45:09PM *  10 points [-]

I remember hearing the story of a mathematical paper published in English but written by a Frenchmen, containing the footnotes:

1 I am grateful to professor Littlewood for helping me translate this paper into English.2

2 I am grateful to professor Littlewood for helping me translate this footnote into English.3

3 I am grateful to professor Littlewood for helping me translate this footnote into English.

Why was no fourth footnote necessary?

Comment author: Bugmaster 20 May 2013 09:23:35PM 0 points [-]

So... the answer is... if I told you I don't speak any English, you'd believe me ? Not sure what your point is here.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 20 May 2013 09:28:44PM 0 points [-]

Well, I posted the link mostly as a joke, but we can take a serious lesson from it: yes, maybe I would believe you; it would depend. If you told me "I don't speak English", but then showed no sign of understanding any questioning in English, nor ever showed any further ability to speak it... then... yeah, I'd lean in the direction of believing you.

Of course if you tell me "I don't speak English" in the middle of an in-depth philosophical discussion, carried on in English, then no.

But a sufficiently carefully constructed agent could memorize a whole lot of sentences. Anyway, this is getting into GAZP vs. GLUT territory, and that's being covered elsewhere in the thread.

Comment author: Bugmaster 20 May 2013 10:17:39PM 0 points [-]

Anyway, this is getting into GAZP vs. GLUT territory, and that's being covered elsewhere in the thread.

There are already quite a few comments on this post -- do you have a link to the thread in question ?

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 20 May 2013 10:19:45PM 1 point [-]