Computing Machinery and Intelligence

2 Critique of the new problem

1. What advantage did Turing see in a text-only test?
   It draws a fairly sharp line between physical and intellectual capacities: there’s no point making a thinking machine more human with artificial skin, a machine isn’t penalised for not shining in beauty competitions, nor a man for losing a race against an aeroplane.
   • Turing, 1950, Computing Machinery and Intelligence (Mind), §2
2. What is the strongest objection Turing admitted against the imitation game as a criterion?
   That it is weighted against the machine: a machine might do something that ought to be called thinking but is very different from what a man does. His answer: if a machine nevertheless plays the game satisfactorily, this objection needn’t trouble us.
   • Turing, 1950, Computing Machinery and Intelligence (Mind), §2
3. What is notable about the specimen answer to “Add 34957 to 70764”?
   It comes after a pause of about 30 seconds and is wrong: 105621 instead of 105721. That fits Turing’s later point that a machine playing the game would hide its speed and deliberately make arithmetic mistakes, since deadly accuracy would unmask it.
   • Turing, 1950, Computing Machinery and Intelligence (Mind), §2