1950
Computing Machinery and Intelligence
The question that started AI, and the test we still argue about every time a model talks.
“I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'”
The imitation game
Turing sidesteps metaphysics. Instead of defining "think," he asks whether a machine could converse well enough to pass as human. The Turing test became folklore, but the deeper move is operational: make the question testable.
Objections examined
Turing walks through nine objections (theological, mathematical, Lady Lovelace's "only knows what we tell it," and others) with patient engineering humor. Many still appear in modern debates about LLMs.
Still the starting point
Every discussion of machine intelligence eventually returns here. The paper is short, readable, and unsettling in how much it anticipates. We still dispute the same terms Turing tried to dissolve.
- collection
Five papers, five weeks, zero prerequisites. The spine of the whole archive.
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Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems
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The Market for Lemons