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Computing Machinery and Intelligence · 1950
I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The sentence is a question and a trapdoor: Turing asks it only so that he can set it aside for something testable. That move, replacing a philosophical argument with an experiment, is why the line opens so many AI talks and essays. It is also why quoting it alone can mislead, because the paper argues that the original question is too vague to answer.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for Computing Machinery and IntelligenceShow the scene
This is the first sentence of Alan Turing's 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," published in the journal Mind (pages 433 to 460) under the heading The Imitation Game. Turing immediately says that settling the question by how people use the words "machine" and "think" would be dangerous, since the answer would then be a matter for a Gallup poll, which he calls absurd. He swaps it for a party game, the imitation game, in which an interrogator tries to tell the players apart by their written answers. The paper introduced what became known as the Turing test.
Sources (2)
- Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence (Mind 1950), text mirrorOpening paragraph, section 1 The Imitation GameReference checked
- Wikipedia: Computing Machinery and IntelligenceLeadReference checked
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