Turing test
A criterion proposed by {Alan Turing} in 1950 for deciding whether a computer is
intelligent. Turing called it "the Imitation Game" and
offered it as a replacement for the question, "Can machines
think?"
A human holds a written conversation on any topic with an
unseen correspondent (nowadays it might be by {electronic
mail} or {chat}). If the human believes he is talking to
another human when he is really talking to a computer then the
computer has passed the Turing test and is deemed to be
intelligent.
Turing predicted that within 50 years (by the year 2000)
technological progress would produce computing machines with a
capacity of 10▫▫9 bits, and that with such machinery, a
computer program would be able to fool the average questioner
for 5 minutes about 70% of the time.
The {Loebner Prize} is a competition to find a computer
program which can pass an unrestricted Turing test.
{Julia (http://fuzine.mt.cs.cmu.edu/mlm/julia.html)} is a
program that attempts to pass the Turing test.
See also {AI-complete}.
(1995-01-04)