New Media Reader: "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"

In Alan Turing's 1950 article "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," Turing introduces a new idea that he calls the "Imitation Game." He describes two versions of the game. In one version, an interrogator talks through a teletype machine to a woman and a man. The man is supposed to try and convince the interrogator that he is a woman. The woman, on the other hand, is supposed to keep the interrogator from concluding that the man is a woman. She might do so by convincing the interrogator that she is a woman and that the man is lying. Later in his essay, Turing proposes the other version of the game in which the interrogator talks to a person and a computer. It is the computer's task to convince the interrogator that it is a person, while it is the person's job to prevent the computer from doing so. Ultimately, if the interrogator cannot determine which is a computer and which is a human, the computer wins. The point in the game which came to be known as the "Turing Test" is to demonstrate a machine's capability for intelligence. ..the computer's ability to imitate the functions of a human being. In his essay, Turing proposed that within the next fifty years it would be possible to program computers in such a way that they would be able to win the imitation game at least 30% of the time after a period of 5 minute questioning by an interrogator. This idea of Turing's is evident of his optimism for the possibility of artificial intelligence in the future.