Professor Quillibrace was reading the newspaper.
Mr Blottisham was standing beside the fireplace.
Miss Elowen Stray was drinking tea.
“I have solved the Turing Test,” said Blottisham.
Quillibrace lowered the newspaper.
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
“How long did this take?”
“Several minutes.”
“I see.”
“The problem,” said Blottisham, “is that people have made the whole thing unnecessarily complicated. You simply ask the machine questions. If it gives convincing answers, it passes.”
“Convincing to whom?” asked Miss Stray.
“To the person asking.”
“Ah,” said Quillibrace.
Blottisham looked pleased.
“You see? Even you agree.”
“I was merely acknowledging that you had spoken.”
“Well, there we are.”
Stray smiled.
“But what makes an answer convincing?”
“Because it sounds intelligent.”
“And how do you recognise that?”
Blottisham paused.
“Because it is intelligent.”
Quillibrace folded the newspaper.
“That is impressively circular.”
“Thank you.”
“It was not a compliment.”
“I shall take it as one.”
Stray put down her cup.
“Suppose you are talking to someone and they give you an unexpected answer. What do you do?”
“I ask another question.”
“And if they answer that one sensibly?”
“I ask another.”
“And eventually?”
“I decide whether they are intelligent.”
“On the basis of what?”
“The conversation.”
“Exactly.”
Blottisham frowned.
“But that is the Turing Test.”
“Yes.”
“So what's the problem?”
“There may not be one,” said Stray. “But notice what you just said. You don't observe intelligence directly. You observe what happens in the conversation and infer something about the participant.”
Blottisham considered this.
“Yes.”
Quillibrace nodded.
“Which is what you do with me.”
“I don't infer your intelligence.”
“You certainly infer something.”
“I infer that you are irritating.”
“That is not intelligence.”
“Perhaps not.”
Stray intervened.
“The interesting point is that the human participant is part of the test.”
Blottisham looked puzzled.
“I thought the machine was being tested.”
“So did everyone,” said Quillibrace.
“But the human asks the questions.”
“Yes.”
“And judges the answers.”
“Yes.”
“So the human is not being tested.”
“Not exactly,” said Stray. “But the human is not merely a measuring instrument either.”
Blottisham looked at her.
“What else is a human measuring instrument supposed to be?”
“Neutral.”
Quillibrace smiled.
“Have you ever met one?”
Blottisham ignored him.
“So the human has expectations.”
“Yes.”
“And assumptions about what intelligent behaviour looks like.”
“Yes.”
“And these affect how the answers are interpreted.”
“Yes.”
Blottisham looked increasingly dissatisfied.
“But surely the machine either gives a good answer or it doesn't.”
“Good for what?” asked Stray.
“For the question.”
“And what makes an answer good?”
“It has to fit the conversation.”
Stray smiled.
“Precisely.”
Blottisham stared at her.
Quillibrace looked back at his newspaper.
“Dangerous moment,” he said. “She has found something.”
Stray continued.
“A conversation isn't a sequence of independent answers. What has already happened changes what can happen next.”
“Yes,” said Blottisham impatiently.
“You remember what was said earlier.”
“Yes.”
“You develop expectations.”
“Yes.”
“You refer back to things.”
“Yes.”
“You repair misunderstandings.”
“Yes.”
“You sometimes change your mind.”
“I have never changed my mind.”
Quillibrace looked over the top of the newspaper.
“You changed your mind yesterday.”
“About what?”
“Whether the biscuits were stale.”
“They were stale.”
“You said they weren't.”
“I had not yet established that they were stale.”
“You ate six of them.”
“I was gathering evidence.”
Stray suppressed a smile.
“You see?”
“I see that Blottisham eats biscuits,” said Quillibrace.
“No. The conversation has a history. What happened earlier affects what happens now.”
Blottisham nodded reluctantly.
“And this is important for the machine?”
“It is important for the interaction.”
“What is the difference?”
“The machine becomes part of the history.”
There was a short silence.
Blottisham looked at Quillibrace.
“Is she saying the machine remembers?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Then how can it have a history?”
Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.
“An excellent question.”
Stray nodded.
“A history isn't simply a record of the past. It is what has happened that now makes a difference to what can happen next.”
Blottisham thought about this.
“So if I annoy you today, and you expect me to annoy you tomorrow, I have acquired a history.”
“You have acquired several.”
“And if I say something now that changes what you expect me to say later—”
“Then your previous behaviour has become part of the conditions of the next interaction.”
Blottisham looked delighted.
“So I am a historical system.”
Quillibrace sighed.
“Unfortunately.”
Stray laughed.
“And the same principle can apply to a conversation with a machine. What has already happened can become part of the conditions for what happens next.”
“So the machine has become an interlocutor.”
“Yes.”
Blottisham considered the word.
“That's rather grand.”
“It simply means that it is participating in the conversation.”
“Rather than pretending to?”
“Exactly.”
“But if it is only pretending to be human—”
Stray interrupted gently.
“Why assume that participation requires being human?”
Blottisham opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
“I don't like that question.”
“I know.”
Quillibrace returned to his newspaper.
“The evening improves.”
Blottisham walked towards the tea table.
“Let me see if I've got this. The Turing Test begins by asking whether a machine can imitate a human.”
“Yes.”
“But if the machine's responses actually change the conversation—”
“Yes.”
“And the conversation changes the machine's subsequent responses—”
“Yes.”
“And the human changes too—”
“Yes.”
“Then we aren't simply testing whether the machine can imitate a human.”
“Correct.”
“We are participating in a relationship.”
Stray smiled.
“Now you're getting somewhere.”
Blottisham looked alarmed.
“Where?”
Quillibrace folded the newspaper again.
“Toward the question of what exactly you thought you were testing.”
Blottisham sat down.
“I was testing the machine.”
“Yes.”
“But I was also interpreting it.”
“Yes.”
“And my interpretation affects the conversation.”
“Yes.”
“And the conversation affects the machine's responses.”
“Yes.”
“And the machine affects my subsequent behaviour.”
“Yes.”
Blottisham looked around the room.
“So the machine is testing me.”
“No,” said Stray.
“Good.”
“It is participating with you.”
“Oh.”
He considered this for several seconds.
“That's worse.”
Quillibrace smiled.
“Why?”
“Because if it isn't testing me, I can't fail.”
“You already have.”
Blottisham looked offended.
“At what?”
Quillibrace picked up his newspaper.
“Understanding the Turing Test.”
Miss Stray laughed.
Blottisham looked from one to the other.
“I still think there's a simpler way.”
“Of course,” said Quillibrace.
“Ask the machine whether it is intelligent.”
Stray sighed.
Quillibrace returned to his newspaper.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
“Strong?”
“Very.”
“Milk?”
“None.”
“Sugar?”
“Two.”
Quillibrace paused.
“Remarkable.”
“What?”
“An intelligence test we can actually administer.”
Blottisham looked pleased.
“I knew it.”
“No,” said Quillibrace. “I was testing the coffee.”
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