WHAT does it mean to think? The question has botheredn philosophers for millennia and computer scientists for decades. In 1950 Alan Turing, who pioneered artificial intelligence, devised a test to determine how well a machine can mimic mankind in an attempt to address whether computers can think. He argued that if a computer could fool a person into thinking that he was corresponding with another person, then it would be impossible for that person to tell whether or not the computer was thinking. Human judges have since been asked to distinguish between two correspondents, one man, one machine, in a competition held every year for the past two decades. Two years ago Brian Christian landed the task of persuading these judges he was not a computer. His account of the experience is entertaining and informative.
展开▼
