There Can Be No Turing-Test--Passing Memorizing Machines

Abstract

Anti-behaviorist arguments against the validity of the Turing Test as a sufficient condition for attributing intelligence are based on a <i>memorizing machine</i>, which has recorded within it responses to every possible Turing Test interaction of up to a fixed length. The mere possibility of such a machine is claimed to be enough to invalidate the Turing Test.

I consider the nomological possibility of memorizing machines, and how long a Turing Test they can pass. I replicate my previous analysis of this <i>critical Turing Test length</i> based on the age of the universe, show how considerations of communication time shorten that estimate and allow eliminating the sole remaining contingent assumption, and argue that the bound is so short that it is incompatible with the very notion of the Turing Test. I conclude that the memorizing machine objection to the Turing Test as a sufficient condition for attributing intelligence is invalid.