Turing test

noun

: a test to establish the existence of artificial intelligence in which questions from an interrogator are answered by an unseen person and computer with the understanding that if the interrogator is unable to correctly identify which responder is human the computer has demonstrated thinking ability comparable to a human's

The Turing test pits an interrogator against another human and a computer. Able to communicate with each via keyboard and printer only, the interrogator tries to determine which is which. If he can, the computer is not considered intelligent.

—Phil Lopiccola

Examples of Turing test in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In this sense, the computer-science community is evaluating recurrent neural networks via a kind of Turing test. —Zachary C. Lipton, IEEE Spectrum, 26 Jan. 2016

One day, the quality of these AI programs might, in fact, pass the Turing test with flying colors and become completely seamless and frustration-free. —Mantvydas Štareika, Forbes, 29 Oct. 2024

The next entry after this is a reference to the work of Alan Turing, who introduced the Turing test at mid-century. —John Werner, Forbes, 18 Oct. 2024

Brace yourself for a whole new kind of CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). —Jill Lepore, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Alan Turing (1912–1954), British mathematician who proposed the test

First Known Use

1956, in the meaning defined above