Week 7- Digital Automata

1. Write a one paragraph describing the Turing test and another paragraph describing an argument against the Turing Test, known as the about the Chinese room.

Turning test:The turning test can be described as a way to test a machines (system) “capability to demonstrate thought”. This demonstrates a computer/system operating without the need of a user (operator). The turning test, tests “whether or not a system is intelligent”. Alan Turning developed the test and describes it as when a person/human is having a conversation on the computer/system. If the person/human cannot “distinguish the machine from a human” the system would be deemed as intelligent. An example is when a person is on a computer and receives replies the person does not know it is a computer not another person replying to their instructions.

Source- http://www.bcp.psych.ualberta.ca/~mike/Pearl_Street/Dictionary/contents/T/turing_test.html

Chinese room:The Chinese room highlights the fact that if the system uses Chinese symbols then the system would pass the turning test. This argument shows that if the system replies with Chinese symbols the user may think it’s another human which it is not. This in theory would be a successful turning test but the system might just send out Chinese symbols but the symbols do not make sense with the question or conversation. Searle states that a Chinese speaker communicates with the system can the system responds in Chinese the person might think it is another person but the system might not actually be intelligent. This demonstrates that the Chinese speaker may think it is another speaker who may not know how to read the symbols properly.

Source:
http://philosophy.uwaterloo.ca/MindDict/chineseroom.html

2.Can virtual agents succeed in delivering high-quality customer service over the Web? Think of examples which support or disprove the question or just offer an opinion based on your personal experience.

There are a wide range of categories involving agents. These categories include:
Mobile agents
Distributed agents
Autonomous agents
Intelligent agents
Fuzzy agents

Source :
Knox,I.(2009) Automata week 7 power point presentation.

When trying to determine whether or not a virtual agent can be successful in delivering high quality customer service over the web, there are are a number of different factors that should be looked at. The internet has alot of virtual agents. Companies like Google have agents involved when a user/customer put in a word or question into the search engine the agent gives a reply with similar websites relating. This can be very successful and save comsumers alot of time when searching for a particular site or information on the internet. Search engines also have negative aspect. When searching with the search engine the response given can sometimes not be what you are looking for or not relevant to the words entered in the search. In these circumstances google and other similar search engines that are using agents are not always delivering gigh quality customer service. Rappa Explains this by stating “ the agent ideally gives the best customer service it can but does not always give the customer what they ideally want.”

Source-
http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/automata_tr.html