Turing’s Test, a Beautiful Thought Experiment

In the wake of the latest trends of AI, there has been a resurgence of claims and questions about the Turing test and its value, which are reminiscent of decades of practical “Turing” tests. If AI were quantum physics, by now, several “Schrödinger’s” cats would have been killed. It is time for a historical reconstruction of Turing’s beautiful thought experiment. This article presents a wealth of evidence, including new archival sources, and gives original answers to several open questions about Turing’s 1950 paper, including its relation with early AI.