Alan Turing · Mathematics

Can Machines Think?

Turing’s 1950 question and the ‘imitation game’ - how he proposed to replace the unanswerable question ‘can machines think?’ with a concrete behavioural test, founding the philosophy of artificial intelligence.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned about Turing’s 1950 paper, the ‘imitation game’ (the Turing test), and how he reframed the question of machine intelligence behaviourally. Explain the test, why Turing proposed it, and the main objections he anticipated.

Leads to Descartes.

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