Turing's Test, a Beautiful Thought Experiment
This work addresses historical and philosophical debates about the Turing test for AI researchers and historians, but it is incremental as it builds on existing historical analysis.
The paper tackles the historical interpretation of the Turing test by reconstructing Turing's 1950 thought experiment using new archival evidence, providing original answers to open questions about its relation to early AI.
In the wake of the latest trends of artificial intelligence (AI), there has been a resurgence of claims and questions about the Turing test and its value, which are reminiscent of decades of practical "Turing" tests. If AI were quantum physics, by now several "Schrödinger's" cats would have been killed. It is time for a historical reconstruction of Turing's beautiful thought experiment. This paper presents a wealth of evidence, including new archival sources, and gives original answers to several open questions about Turing's 1950 paper, including its relation with early AI.