The Turing Test Is Irrelevant
In the unannounced and somewhat obscure tradition of "David Hsing is a bit of a harsh bloke that says harsh things when he's on a harsh streak" I'm going to say this:
The Turing Test is irrelevant. Turing himself might even agree.
Originally, Turing came up with the idea of what-is-to-be-called the Turing Test because he thought that "intelligence" in machines is vague and ill-defined (true) and so instead of talking about "intelligence" in machines we can look at how well a machine can imitate human behavior, which is actually measurable instead of trying to measure how hard someone pounds on a damned desk while stating "a machine is INTELLIGENT, DAMMIT **pounds on desk**"
But here's the thing, people... It doesn't matter how well an imitation game is played; That has NOTHING TO DO with how USEFUL a machine is (unless that use is actually to induce certain physiological reactions in humans and make them feel the fuzzy-feelies, which could be accomplished by objects that are much lower in tech and monetary cost such as teddy bears or anything that could be remotely mentally associated with an animal or person) OR how accurately or reliably a machine would function in informational or calculative tasks. I don't know if most people realize this or not, but the following two items are completely different:
1. Looking and feeling plausibly accurate and reliable (GREAT imitation) and
2. Accurate and reliable (GREAT function)
If people can't realize it or just don't care, then well I can't help 'em; Someone else can try implanting the concept into their skulls.
Linking the following Substack post because it's also applicable to this particular context:
