Alan Turing, an English mathematician, wartime code-breaker and pioneer of computer science was born on 23 June 1912 in Paddington, London (bbc, n.d.). Considered a misfit at school, he was bad at studies and was often criticized for it. He went to Princeton cryptanalytic department and that is where his true talent was recognized, as he played a vital role in deciphering the messages encrypted by German Enigma machine. His notable works include a paper on Computable Numbers which introduced an abstract machine, now known as “Turing machine” (O’Connor & Robertson, 2003). He also came up with a paper on a test called “The Imitation Game” aimed at settling the issue of machine intelligence, now known as Turing Test.
The Turing Test, put in very simple and lucid words is a method for determining if or not a computer is capable of thinking like a human. The test is for an interrogator to decide whether a participant in a natural-language conversation is a human or a computer (Rapaport 2005). The participant can pass the test to such an extent that it convinces the interrogator that it is human despite it really being a computer. The implications of the test are that it attributes intelligence to computers and proposes that they are equivalent to human beings as far as the process of thinking is concerned or are at least capable of doing so. The test opened new avenues in the field of machine intelligence.
Works Cited
bbc. ”Alan Turing.”. BBC. 2 December 2012. Web. n.d.
O’Connor, JJ and Robertson EF. ”Alan Mathison Turing.”
Groups.dcs. 2 December 2012. Web. October 2003.
Rapaport J. William. ”The Turing Test.”. Department of Computer Science and Engineering
