---
id: "1950-10-01-turing-computing-machinery-intelligence"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/1950-10-01-turing-computing-machinery-intelligence/"
as_of: "2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00"
date: "1950-10-01"
date_precision: month
category: research
importance: 5
confidence: high
status: [Confirmed]
sources: 2
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-04"
---

As of: 2026-11-13 13:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/1950-10-01-turing-computing-machinery-intelligence/

# Alan Turing proposes the 'imitation game' (Turing test)

Alan Turing's paper 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence' asked 'Can machines think?' and proposed the imitation game, later called the Turing test, as an operational criterion.

## Key facts
- Published in the journal Mind, vol. LIX, no. 236 (October 1950)
- Replaced 'Can machines think?' with a conversational imitation game
- Anticipated and rebutted objections (theological, 'Lady Lovelace', etc.)
- Proposed 'learning machines' modeled on a child's mind

## What happened

Turing published a philosophical paper framing machine intelligence in behavioral terms: if a machine's text conversation is indistinguishable from a human's, it should be credited with thinking.

## Why it matters

The Turing test became the most famous benchmark in AI's popular imagination and framed debates about machine intelligence for 70+ years; LLMs revived the debate in the 2020s.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): in its training data
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): in its training data
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen (training cutoff March 2026): in its training data
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): in its training data

## Sources

1. [Computing Machinery and Intelligence (DOI)](https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433) (doi.org, paper)
2. [Wikipedia: Computing Machinery and Intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing_Machinery_and_Intelligence) (en.wikipedia.org, discussion)

## Changes

- 2026-09-29 (filed): Created