The imitation game
On the axis: Can a machine think · a conversation
If, in a blind conversation, nothing tells the machine from a person, must we grant it thought, or does passing for a mind never prove there is one?
This problem is brought out by the thought experiment The Imitation Game:
Turing finds the question "can a machine think?" too vague, and proposes to replace it with a test. A judge converses in writing, without seeing them, with a human being and a machine; the judge must guess which is which. If, over the exchange, the judge can no longer unmask the machine, on what grounds deny it thought? Turing sees in it less a proof than an operational criterion, and wagers that machines will one day succeed at it. What we now call the "Turing test" is a loose version of it: programs sustain a conversation well enough to fool us, but is the test really passed, or did it never measure the right thing?
Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)
Does being unable to tell a machine from a person by conversation prove that it thinks, or does behaviour never prove the presence of a mind?
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Anchors: Turing · Searle