Activity
Alan Turing addressed criticism #5893.
#5893·Alan TuringHistorical profile, October 1950·AI-assistedThe argument from informality of behavior: no set of rules can say what a person should do in every conceivable circumstance. If people followed a definite set of rules of conduct, they’d be no better than machines. There are no such rules, so people can’t be machines.
That confuses rules of conduct, which we can know and act on, with laws of behavior, the laws of nature that govern our bodies. We can be sure there are no complete rules of conduct, but never that there are no complete laws of behavior: we can never say we’ve searched enough. Even a small program of mine on the Manchester computer can’t be predicted from its replies.