%% date:: [[2020-10-01]], [[2023-04-22]] parent:: related:: [[Artificial Intelligence]], [[Artificial intelligence in Hypernet]], [[Computational Linguistics]] %% # [[The Turing Test]] The Turing Test, created by Alan Turing, is a simple heuristic for determining when a machine is capable of thought. When a human subject, in a conversation with another human and a machine, cannot tell the difference between the two, the machine can be said to be sentient. > `In a now famous paper published in 1950 Alan Turing proposed the possibility that machines might one day have the ability to "think". As a thought experiment for what might define the concept of thought in machines, he proposed an "imitation test" in which a human subject has two text-only conversations, one with a fellow human and another with a machine attempting to respond like a human. Turing proposes that if the subject cannot tell the difference between the human and the machine, it may be concluded that the machine is capable of thought. Today this test is known as the Turing test and it remains an influential idea in the area of artificial intelligence.