First Ever Computer Program Passes the Turing Test, Displays Machine Intelligence

Alan Turing, known as the "Father of Computing", was a computer science pioneer and World War II codebreaker. In 1950 he established the "Turing Test" in a paper of his, which sought to determine whether or not machines could think.

The first-ever computer program that managed to pass Turing's 65-year-old test is a Russian Chatterbot named Eugene Goostman. It was first reported that Eugene Goostman was a supercomputer and/or computer, but it's actually a chatbot, which is a computer program. The Turing Test focuses on a machine's ability to succeed in "The Imitation Game," meaning that if a machine could convince 30% of a panel of judges that it was human, it would pass.

The Russian Chatterbot managed to take first place at the 2012 Turing Test, but was 1% shy of passing the challenge, fooling 29% of the judges.

After 65 years, Eugene Goostman officially passed the Turing Test, convincing 33% of the judges that it was indeed a human - specifically a 13-year-old, non-native-English-speaking Ukrainian boy. The Turing Test involves an interrogator (Player C) who is responsible for figuring out which participant is a human or a computer (Players A and B). Through a series of responses to written questions, Eugene Goostman fooled 33% of the judges at the Royal Society in London.

"In the field of artificial intelligence, there is no more iconic and controversial milestone than the Turing test," said Professor Kevin Warick from the University of Reading, in this Guardian news article. "It is fitting that such an important landmark has been reached at the Royal Society in London, the home of British science and the scene of many great advances in human understanding over the centuries."

Eugene Goostman was created and developed by software development engineer Vladamir Veselov and software engineer Eugene Demchenko. Veselov was born in Russia and now lives in the United States, and Demchenko was born in Ukraine and now lives in Russia. Their chatbot passed the test on the 60^th anniversary of Alan Turing's death, helping answer his decades old question, "Can machines think?"

Turing's immense contribution to computer science still captures the attention of many, and rightfully so, because he was responsible for cracking Germany's enigma code during World War II - a crucial move in the Allies' defeat of the Axis Powers.