The Turing Test, proposed by Alan Turing (195O), was designed to provide a satisfactory operational definition of intelligence.

• Rather than proposing a long and perhaps controversial list of qualifications required for intelligence, he suggested a test based on in distinguishability from undeniably intelligent entities-human beings.
• The computer passes the test if a human interrogator, after posing some written questions, cannot tell whether the written responses come from a person or not.
• For now, we note that programming a computer to pass the test provides plenty to work on.

The computer would need to possess the following capabilities:

• Natural language processing to enable it to communicate successfully in English.
• Knowledge representation to store what it knows or hears;
• Automated reasoning to use the stored information to answer questions and to draw new conclusions;
• Machine learning to adapt to new circumstances and to detect and extrapolate patterns.

Turing's test deliberately avoided direct physical interaction between the interrogator and the computer, because physical simulation of a person is unnecessary for intelligence.

However, the so-called total Turing Test includes a video signal so that the interrogator can test the subject's perceptual abilities, as well as the opportunity for the interrogator to pass physical objects "through the hatch."

To pass the total Turing Test, the computer will need

• Computer vision to perceive objects, and
• Robotics to manipulate objects and move about.