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Session 8b :: Alan Turing daniel-hromada ()


Session 8b :: Alan Turing

Order of the day

  1. Narratio :: The imitation game
  2. Repetitio :: Introduction to information theory
  3. Questio :: Can machines think ?
  4. Lectio ::
    • Turing machine
    • Turing test
  5. Exercitio :: Turing test.

The imitation game

  • a 2014 movie adaptation of the book Alan Turing: The Enigma (1983)
  • 8 Oscar nominations, one Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay
  • story about life, work and death of Alan Matthison Turing (A.M.T.)

Question of the day

Can machines think ?

What does it mean "to think" ?

  • your definitions
  • dictionary definition
  • philosopher's definition

What do You think?

philosopher's definition of "thinking"

What I want to tell You is ... that "thinking" consists of execution of operation with signs. *

* Origin of this quote is to be sought from in some later works of L.Wittgenstein.

Descartes

A.M.T. OBE FRS (23.6.1912 - 7.6.1954)
  • an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist
  • father of theoretical computer science (1936) and artificial intelligence (1948-1950)
  • pivotal role in the project Ultra
  • convicted for "gross indecency" in 1952, put on hormonal treatment, develops gynaecomastia
  • death by cyanide; half-bitten apple by the bedside
  • Queen's "pardon" on 24.12.2013

Halting Problem

On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the "Entscheidungsproblem" (1936)
  • halting problem is the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running (i.e., halt) or continue to run forever
  • Turing proved that a general algorithm to solve the halting problem for all possible program-input pairs cannot exist
  • to prove this, he described a paradox involving a concept now known as "Turing machine"

a Turing machine #1

A "theoretical" machine consisting of
  • tape with discrete symbols
  • reading/writing header
  • table of rules
  • tape-moving mechanism
Visualization of the Turing Machine (Rosario van Tulpe, 2007, CC BY-SA)

a Turing machine #2

Universal Turing machine

"It is possible to invent a single machine which can be used to compute any computable sequence. If this machine U is supplied with a tape on the beginning of which is written the S.D ["standard description" of an action table] of some computing machine M, then U will compute the same sequence as M." (Turing, 1936)

Universal Turing Machine2

Turing test

"A TT is a way how to address the question "Can machines think?" in a scientifically plausible ye deeply empathic way. More concretely, Turing (1950) proposes that the performance of an AA under question shall be evaluated by a human judge J whose objective is to determine which among two entities - with whom J is in real-time interaction - is of human and which is of artificial nature." (Hromada, 2012)

The imitation game

Computational machinery and intelligence (1950)

I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with defnitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think".(Turing, 1950)

Exercicio :: Musical Turing Test

You are going to hear two pieces of music. One is composed and performed by humans, another is composed and generated by an artificial system. You are going to hear both pieces twice. Subsequently, You are going to write down which piece (first or second) was composed and performed by human beings.

Disputatio : "Can machines think ?"