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The Question

  1. 01The Question
  2. 02The machines arrive
  3. 03The uncomfortable question
  4. 04A peculiar habit of mind
  5. 05What Turing had already built
  6. 06Unsatisfied
  7. 07What does it mean to think?
  8. 08The definition problem
  9. 09The Imitation Game
  10. 10Why this sidesteps the problem
  11. 11Why this was radical
  12. 12Meet ELIZA
  13. 13What did you notice?
  14. 14The question is still open
  15. 15Reinforce your understanding
  16. 16Question: Turing's move
  17. 17Question: Behavior
  18. 18Question: Limits of the test
  19. 19Quiz: answer
  20. 20The question follows you
  21. 21Want to go deeper?
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Why this sidesteps the problem

Notice what Turing did not do.

He didn't define thinking. He didn't crack open machines to hunt for consciousness or understanding inside. He didn't ask about feelings.

He asked one question: from the outside, can you tell the machine from the human?

This was deliberate. If conversation can't distinguish them, then whatever thinking truly is, the machine does enough of it to matter.

The vague question "Can machines think?" became something concrete. Something testable.

Citations(2)↓
  1. 1. academic.oup.com
  2. 2. plato.stanford.edu