“You cannot make a machine to think for you.” This is a commonplace that is usually accepted without question. It will be the purpose of this paper to question it.
Most machinery developed for commercial purposes is intended to carry out some very specific job, and to carry it out with certainty and considerable speed. Very often it does the same series of operations over and over again without any variety.
My contention is that machines can be constructed which will simulate the behaviour of the human mind very closely. They will make mistakes at times, and at times they may make new and very interesting statements, and on the whole the output of them will be worth attention to the same sort of extent as the output of a human mind.
It is clearly possible to produce a machine which would give a very good account of itself for any range of tests, if the machine were made sufficiently elaborate. However, this again would hardly be considered an adequate proof. Such a machine would give itself away by making the same sort of mistake over and over again, and being quite unable to correct itself, or to be corrected by argument from outside. If the machine were able in some way to ‘learn by experience’ it would be much more impressive. If this were the case there seems to be no real reason why one should not start from a comparatively simple machine, and, by subjecting it to a suitable range of ‘experience’ transform it into one which was much more elaborate, and was able to deal with a far greater range of contingencies.
Let us suppose that it is intended that the machine shall understand English, and that owing to its having no hands or feet, and not needing to eat, not desiring to smoke, it will occupy its time mostly in playing games such as Chess and GO, and possibly Bridge. The machine is provided with a typewriter keyboard on which any remarks to it are typed, and it also types out any remarks that it wishes to make. I suggest that the education of the machine should be entrusted to some highly competent schoolmaster who is interested in the project but who is forbidden any detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the machine.
I suggest that there should be two keys which can be manipulated by the schoolmaster, and which represent the ideas of pleasure and pain. At later stages in education the machine would recognise certain other conditions as desirable owing to their having been constantly associated in the past with pleasure, and likewise certain others as undesirable. Certain expressions of anger on the part of the schoolmaster might, for instance, be recognised as so ominous that they could never be overlooked, so that the schoolmaster would find that it became unnecessary to ‘apply the cane’ any more.
Let us now assume, for the sake of argument, that these machines are a genuine possibility, and look at the consequences of constructing them. To do so would of course meet with great opposition. There would be great opposition from the intellectuals who were afraid of being put out of a job. It is probable though that the intellectuals would be mistaken about this. There would be plenty to do in trying, say, to keep one’s intelligence up to the standard set by the machines, for it seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. There would be no question of the machines dying, and they would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control.
Speaker: If the world is going to end,
Audience: I desire to believe that the world is going to end;
Speaker: If the world is not going to end,
Audience: I desire to believe that the world is not going to end;
Together: Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want.