Alan Turing and The Turing Test

I was first introduced to Alan Turing in my grade 10 computer science class when we had to program in the “Turing” programming language. It was a primitive programming language in comparison to today’s object oriented languages, however it was a good way to introduce students to the concept of programming.

In the Cognitive Science university course I’m taking right now, there was also a lecture on the findings of Alan Turing and the famous “Turing Test”. The Turing Test is a test for a machine’s ability to demonstrate “intelligence”. Simply put, the test proceeds with a human judge having a natural conversation with both a machine and a human. If the human judge cannot decide correctly which is the machine and which is the human than the machine can be considered “intelligent”.

You can read more about the test on Wikipedia. Many cool chatterbots have come from the Turing Test hoping to be the winners of the Loebner Prize (prizes awarded for most human-like chatterbots). My favourite chatterbot is A.L.I.C.E (http://www.alicebot.org/).

Unfortunately, Alan Turing “the father of modern computer science” had a complicated life. As a homosexual he was given the option of going to jail or taking estrogen pills. Eventually he started to develop breasts and other abnormalities which drove him to commit suicide.