Write a well organized essay of at least 500 words and no more than 1500 words on one of the following topics:
1. Novels, films, and other media have depicted intelligent artificial
life forms for over 150 years. Select one example, and use Turing's formulation
of artificial intelligence to discuss the depiction of one character who
is an artificial life form. How does the depiction of the character
help us evaluate some of Turing's claims? Does Turing's analysis produce
any interesting insights about the character?
2. In the middle of the essay, Turing makes the following statement:
. . . I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.
Turing made this prediction in 1950. It is now the end of the century. Is his prediction true? Do most educated people believe that computers can now or will soon be able to think? In what ways can computers now be considered intelligent? In what ways are they not? Make specific arguments and present concrete examples to support them.
You do not have to cite any references to Turing's essay, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." However, when you refer to it, either paraphrase his ideas in your own language or quote a passage exactly and enclose it in quotation marks or indent it.
We recommend that you print out this page.
Remember, this essay and the narrative essay must both be submitted
through the Summer Essay Evaluation Home Page by 10 AM EDT on Monday June
1.