Turing Test

Question 1

Turing Test Overview

Answer 1

Proposed by Alan Turing in 1950, originally called the “imitation game.”
Tests a machine’s ability to exhibit human-like intelligent behavior, evaluated by a human judge through text-only conversations.

Question 2

Turing Test Procedure

Answer 2

Human evaluator judges conversations between a human and a machine.
Participants are separated, and the evaluator is aware of the machine’s presence.
The test focuses on the indistinguishability of responses, not the correctness of answers.

Question 3

Generalization to Human Performance

Answer 3

Turing test extends to all human performance capacities, both verbal and nonverbal (robotic).

Question 4

Introduction of Turing Test

Answer 4

Turing introduced the test in his 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” at the University of Manchester.
The question, “Can machines think?” replaced by the more concrete inquiry about machines’ performance in the “imitation game.”

Question 5

What was Turing’s Argument?

Answer 5

Turing argued against objections to the idea that “machines can think.”
The test became a crucial concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence.

Question 6

Criticism and Influence

Answer 6

Highly influential since its introduction but also widely criticized.
The Turing test is a key element in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, attracting both praise and critique.

Question 7

John Searle’s Critique

Answer 7

Philosopher John Searle presented the Chinese room argument, disputing the sufficiency of the Turing test to detect consciousness.
Searle rejects the idea that the mind can exist independently of the body, challenging Cartesian dualism.

Question 8

What is the Chinese Room Argument?

Answer 8

The Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a “mind”, “understanding”, or “consciousness”, regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave.

Question 9

What is Cartesian dualism?

Answer 9

Substance dualism, or Cartesian dualism, most famously defended by René Descartes, argues that there are two kinds of foundation: mental and physical. This philosophy states that the mental can exist outside of the body, and the body cannot think.