Jos de Mul. The Total Turing Test. Robotics from Japanese and European perspectives. Kyoto: Graduate School of Sociology and Humanities. Ritsumeikan University, October 8, 2019.
After an general introduction of the famous Turing test, in the first part of my lecture I will illustrate the role deception plays in this test in a discussion of three recent Western science fiction movies in which the Turing test plays a prominent role. Although all three movies are fiction films, they reveal some important characteristics of the Western view on robotics. In the second part I will contrast the Western approach with the way the Turing Test is approached in Japanese robotics, more particular in social android robotics. Hiroshi Ishigiro’s ERICA (ERato Intelligent Conversational Android) will be my main example. In the third and final part I will I will argue that, in the final analysis, the difference in approaches in Western and Eastern robotics is closely connected with different religious worldviews, which even in a secularized world still inform robotics and AI research at a fundamental level.
