The Imitation Game (Grossman, 2014) is a movie based on an Andrew Hodges novel titled Alan Turing: The Enigma (Hodges, 1983). The protagonist, Alan Turing, is a foremost genius and one of the greatest minds in mathematics, computers, psychology, and information theory in the 20th century. While the movie’s main focus is on breaking the German Enigma code, it always expands into his domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI) — although it was not even named that in his time. Foreshadowing AI, Alan Turing derived the Turing Test. This test poses a unique circumstance to determine whether or not a person can distinguish if they are speaking with a computer or a real person. The premise is that if the person is fooled by the computer to make it think that it is a person, then the Turing Test has been passed, and “Voila!” intelligence as it is understood is both in the domain of the human and the machine. So with the advent of Siri and automated messaging systems, it is getting hard to tell the difference. But remember, “It’s an imitation game.”
At the onset of the age of digital computers starting in the late 1940’ (and this period was after the period described in the Imitation Game), much attention has been paid to the field of Artificial Intelligence. With the advent of computers — following the famous Moore’s Law of computation power and cost — the possibilities of a scientific and philosophical revolution bring about brand new world (when much of the world was still rebuilding in the aftermath of World War II), looked very promising and within technological reach. Unfortunately, the promises and the technology are still in the works of being a realized after more than 70 years. Besides Alan Turing, there enters a character by the name of Norbert Wiener who wrote and lectured on the field of Cybernetics. His now famous book, compiled from lecture notes, Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (Weiner, 1948), was published in 1948 and later revised in 1960. Norbert’s ideas and book gained momentum through the 1950’s, so much so, that a wide dichotomy grew between the Cybernetists and the Computational Theorist. Norbert’s colleagues on the other side of the fence, Newell and Simon (Goldstein, 2011), would go the way of championing the growth of artificial intelligence through computational theories and algorithms to study and hopefully produce intelligent systems; however, Norbert would be expanding the field of Cybernetics through the use of Information Theory.
One can understand why artificial intelligence is relevant to cognitive psychology after all, cognitive psychologists study intelligence. But why is cybernetics relevant to cognitive psychology? The simple answer is that humans and machines share particular characteristics. Both work on feedback. This feedback is a communication system for the human or machine to work. For example, if I run and trip over a branch lying on the ground and scrap my knee, the next time I run I will definitely attempt to miss that branch, or any other item that may impede my forward progress. I now possess knowledge of an action that allows me to operate in my environment more effectively. The “information” I obtained from the incident allows me to project the cause-effect relationship. This is feedback that works into the brain’s activity of recognizing situations and how to deal with them. This is what Norbert was theorizing as he took engineering “machine” systems to the fields of psychology, language, and social interaction.
There is nothing better in life than dreams coming true. But wait! Doesn’t the saying go, “Be careful what you dream as it just may come true?” So now we enter the dark sci-fi part of this story. What about the Terminator? Could the Arnold Schwarzenegger character of the T-1000 variety really be a realistic part of the future? The idea is a bit scary, as it is both a fantasy and an “on the horizon possibility.” A somewhat dangerous set of ideas, circumstances, and bad judgment, and we could all be heading for a post-apocalypse future with the human like machines — built for mere curiosity – that are now resulting in our indentured servitude, enslavement, and mass murder. Since the Turing Test has not yet been passed, we have some time to think and work out the details. However, if the day comes when the Turing Test is passed, we can thank the works of Norbert, Newell, and Simon, and live in the “Brave New World.”
So ask what knowledge is, and what possibilities can be achieved through knowledge. The ethical and epistemological extent of human intelligence and its application to an avatar of ourselves ends in an imitation in which the game is afoot and the results are not clearly understood. The limits of knowing what we know and how we know are the base construction on the roadmap to “human.” A rich landscape for philosophers and cognitive psychologist to engage in an ontology of significant depth. If knowing and being able to learn provides a backdrop to better understanding of all the things we possess, desire, and need, the things that form these relationships become our world. I have meet people through the years that I am sure could not pass the Turing Test, and for this, I embrace my humanity and guard it jealously. So why name the blog The Steersman and the Dark Plowman? Well the short answer is Cybernetics has the Greek root for Steersman, and Schwarzenegger (The Terminator) just so happens to be translated as Dark Plowman in German.
References:
Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Grossman, N. (Producer), & Tyldum, M. (Director). (2014). The Imitation Game [Motion picture]. England, UK: Warner Bros.
Hodges, A. (1983). Alan Turning: The Enigma. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Weiner, N. (1965). Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.