The Turing Test

artificial intelligence · thinking machines · computer science · clever test

What is it?. The Turing test is a challenge created by a scientist named Alan Turing to check if a machine can talk like a human. A person tries to have a conversation with either a human or a machine through text, and if they can't tell which is which, the machine passes.

How it works. An evaluator reads a conversation and has to guess: Is this the human or the machine? The machine doesn't need to give perfect answers. It just needs to sound human enough that the evaluator gets confused about who is really who.

Not about being right. The test doesn't care if the machine knows the correct answer to a math problem. It only cares whether the machine sounds like a real person when it answers. Two very different things.

More than just words. Alan Turing's original idea can work for any human skill, including things robots do with their bodies, not just chatting. So the test could apply to whether a robot moves like a human or acts like one too.