Computing Machinery and Intelligence: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:55, 31 July 2024

Revision as of 23:00, 31 July 2024

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First, there is no reason to speculate whether or not they can exist. They already did in 1950.

Second, digital machinery is "universal". Turing's research into the [[theory of computation|foundations of computation]] had proved that a digital computer can, in theory, simulate the behaviour of any other digital machine, given enough memory and time. (This is the essential insight of the [[Church–Turing thesis]] and the [[universal Turing machine]].) Therefore, if ''any'' digital machine can "act like it is thinking", then, ''every'' sufficiently powerful digital machine can. Turing writes, "all digital computers are in a sense equivalent."<ref name=P442>{{Harvnb|Turing|1950|p=442}}</ref>

This allows the original question to be made even more specific. Turing now restates the original question as "Let us fix our attention on one particular digital computer C. Is it true that by modifying this computer to have an adequate storage, suitably increasing its speed of action, and providing it with an appropriate programme, C can be made to play satisfactorily the part of A in the imitation game, the part of B being taken by a man?"<ref name=P442/>