A TURING TEST FOR THE SINGING VOICE AS AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL TOOL: EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL ISSUES

Citation:

Kosteletos G, Georgaki A. A TURING TEST FOR THE SINGING VOICE AS AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL TOOL: EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL ISSUES. 2012.

Abstract:

In this paper we propose the design and implementation
of a Turing Test (TT) for the research of the singing
voice. Although the TT is mainly related to the research
field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), being used both as a
criterion and an operational guide by the scientists of this
field, with the present paper we attempt to introduce a
rather different approach to the TT. Given the fact of
various disputes over the validity of the TT as a criterion
of AI, one might argue that the TT is nothing more than
a ‘philosophical fossil’, a left-over and remainder of past
and outdated philosophical assumptions about the nature
of human intelligence. The problem of an unavoidable
subjectivity in the results of TT experiments has
strengthen the question about the usefulness of the TT as
a research means. Our goal is to introduce a new scope
for the use of the TT not as a criterion of intelligence but
as an ‘instrument’ for tracing certain features of human
judgment in various fields. Pretty much in the fashion of
a Transcendental philosophical stance, we face the TT as
a procedure in which what is judged is judgement itself.
Specifically, in the present paper we attempt to exhibit
the way in which a TT can be used to trace and highlight
features of human judgment regarding the singing voice.
Are certain factors like culture, gender, age or familiarity
with music technology basic parameters of the way in
which humans perceive and judge artificial and natural
singing voice? Is the TT a worn off chapter in the history
of the philosophy of AI or could it be a brand new tool
for the research in fields like psychoacoustics, cognitive
musicology, social psychology of music and generally
for the research on research itself?1 This is the kind of
questions that we intend to raise concerning the future of
the TT, starting with a paper for a possible ‘singing
voice TT’.