Strengths


Tractability and simplicity

No study can provide definitions of "intelligence" and "thinking" that are sufficiently precise and general to be applied to machines, but the turing test, even if imperfect, at least provides something that can actually be measured.

Breadth of subject matter

The format of the test allows the interrogator to give the machine a wide variety of intellectual tasks. Turing wrote that "the question and answer method seems to be suitable for introducing almost any one of the fields of human endeavor that we wish to include."

In order to pass a well-designed Turing test, the machine must use natural language, reason, have knowledge and learn. The test can be extended to include video input, as well as a "hatch" through which objects can be passed. Together, these represent almost all of the major problems that artificial intelligence research would like to solve.






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