Automation and Conversation: Wittgenstein and Turing on ‘Cultural Searches’ and “Common Sense

Juliet Floyd (Boston University)

All are welcome to attend this public talk at MIT as part of the PIKSI summer program!

Abstract: Discussion of Alan Turing has focused on his contributions to developing and implementing the idea of a stored-program computer, his work in cryptography and Artificial Intelligence, and his discussions of the nature of mind and mechanism. His famed “Turing Test” has been taken to advocate a reductive, computationalist mechanism about the brain and the mind, i.e., functionalism. This is thought to point forward toward a possible “singularity” in which machines perform most or all of human labor. The real Turing was a philosopher of the foundations of logic and mathematics, following a longstanding Cambridge philosophical tradition. He insisted on the importance of “common sense”: a malleable, yet fundamental concept he often invoked, influenced above all by Wittgenstein, whom he in turn influenced. Turing’s fascination with what he called “the cultural search” provides us with a novel perspective on the role and nature of automation, conversation and emerging media in our computationally-driven world.