Can a machine think?

Whether calculation, play, or composition by a machine counts as thought, or only imitates it.

Direction Humanlike machines
Span 1637–1950
Questions 3
Works 17
Languages French, English, Spanish

  1. Q01Can a machine originate an idea that its maker did not supply?

    7 answers are hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.

  2. Q02Would a machine's ability to converse appropriately be sufficient evidence that it thinks?

    Yes3

    • 1668Cordemoy, A Philosophicall Discourse Concerning Speech

      I know other bodies have minds like mine because their speech is new, fitting and cannot be explained by mechanical principles alone.

    • 1747La Mettrie, Man a Machine

      Proposes that an ape could be taught language by Amman's method for the deaf, after which it would be a little gentleman; speech is a trained bodily capacity, not proof of an immaterial soul.

    • 1950Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence

      Replaces 'Can machines think?' with the imitation game: a machine that converses indistinguishably from a human should be credited as we credit other people.

    No4

    • 1637Descartes, Discourse on Method

      A machine could utter words but could never arrange them to answer the sense of whatever is said to it, as the dullest human can; this shows it lacks reason.

    • 1886l'Isle-Adam, Tomorrow's Eve

      Edison's android Hadaly holds convincing conversations, but her speech plays from phonograph recordings written in advance by poets and philosophers, so her conversation shows other people's thought, not her own.

    • 1914Quevedo, Essays on Automatics

      Torres argues that appropriate replies need not involve the automaton’s own reasoning: the constructor could prearrange them. The restored paragraph compares the practical difficulty with constructing a lifelike animal. This is a theoretical construction, not a report of a built conversational machine.

    • 1949Jefferson, The Mind of Mechanical Man (Lister Oration)

      A machine that produces sonnets or answers is not thinking unless it writes them from felt thoughts and emotions and knows that it has done so.

  3. Q03Can a machine exercise judgment when faced with circumstances its maker did not anticipate?

    Yes4

    • 1864Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

      Every game of skill can be played by an automaton, because a machine that can choose the right move from any position of the pieces can answer whatever its opponent does.

    • 1914Quevedo, Essays on Automatics

      Torres rejects the mental/manual distinction and proposes automata whose actions are determined by circumstances under rules fixed at construction. Arbitrariamente means rules freely specified by the constructor, not random conduct. This passage does not establish learning beyond anticipated cases.

    • 1943Rosenblueth, Behavior, Purpose and Teleology

      Machines governed by negative feedback correct their course toward a goal from information about their own errors, so purposeful behavior is not unique to organisms.

    • 1950Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence

      Turing distinguishes a trained machine from a computation whose internal state the operator aims to follow. The omitted continuation allows some prediction of its behaviour; opacity alone does not establish judgment. Brief extract: the full pp.458–459 discussion should be reviewed before making a sorting pool.

    No3

    • 1637Descartes, Discourse on Method

      Machines act only from the disposition of their organs, which must be arranged for each particular action, while reason is a universal instrument usable in any circumstance.

    • 1836Poe, Maelzel's Chess-Player

      Calculation is determinate and can be mechanized, but in chess no move follows necessarily from the last and the opponent's will interrupts any fixed sequence, so a pure machine could not play.

    • 1842Menabrea, Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage

      The engine cannot interpret a result that is not self-evident, such as a value becoming infinite; it can handle the case only if the programmer foresaw it and punched a card for it.