The Turing Test Was Never About Machines: IV. When Imitation Became Interaction

An imitation is usually thought to be one thing pretending to be another.

A machine imitates a human.

But conversation makes the distinction less straightforward.

Suppose a machine produces an answer that sounds human. We might call this imitation.

Then the human responds to it.

The machine responds to that response.

The human changes direction.

The machine follows.

Something has happened that is no longer adequately described as one system imitating another.

There is now an interaction.

This distinction matters because interaction is not simply the exchange of independent outputs. Each participant changes the conditions under which the other responds.

A question changes what can be said next.

An answer changes what the next question can be.

A misunderstanding creates a possibility for repair.

A joke changes the tone of the conversation.

A reference to something said earlier gives the present exchange a history.

The behaviour of each participant therefore becomes part of the environment of the other.

This is true of ordinary human conversation. But the Turing Test reveals something important about it by introducing a machine into the relation.

If the machine can participate in the interaction sufficiently well, then the human's behaviour begins to change in response to the machine.

The human explains something.

Then assumes something.

Then challenges the interlocutor.

Then perhaps trusts an answer.

The machine has not merely produced human-like sentences. It has become part of the conditions under which the human is now behaving.

That does not establish that the machine is conscious.

It does not even establish that the machine possesses the same kind of intelligence as the human.

But it does establish something about the relation.

The machine has ceased to be merely an object producing outputs.

It has become an interlocutor.

This may be the deeper achievement hidden inside the Turing Test.

The important transition is not necessarily:

machine → human

but:

machine → participant.

Once that transition occurs, imitation is no longer the whole story.

The question becomes what kind of relationship can exist when one participant is a machine.

And relationships, unlike isolated performances, have histories.

The conversation is about to acquire one.