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The Turing TestThe question machines cannot answer yet

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The Digital World0065

The Turing Test

The question machines cannot answer yet

A test asking whether a machine's conversation is mistakable for a human's.

II · The World14 / 53

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0065 · The Primer14 / 53

In 1950, Alan Turing proposed a test: if a machine can fool a human into thinking it is human during a conversation, can the machine be said to "think"? No machine has passed the test in a way that satisfies everyone. We are still arguing about what "thinking" means. Turing made the argument possible.

  • Modern AI can generate text, images, and code. Whether any of it counts as "thinking" remains an open question.
  • The test is not about whether machines are smart. It is about whether we can define what "smart" means.
SourceTuring, Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)
Standard AI philosophy

Comparison · GKL 0065

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