About a paper arguing that Turing machines can never pass the Turing test.
Has this happened?
Yes 71 (62%)Not sure 33 (29%)No 10 (9%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About a paper arguing that Turing machines can never pass the Turing test.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
It feels more like an argument that chatbots will never exhibit general AI.
Which ought not to be controversial. The point of the Turing test isn't to provide a blueprint (just optimize human dialogue and you'll eventually get general AI) but a test to see that your general AI works. You might build a general AI that fails the Turing test, but you won't be able to pass the test without a general AI. That's the idea.
Unfortunately people have taken the wrong idea from the Turing Test and decided to attack the "faking human communication" thing directly. Which is fun! But anyone who in 2019 thinks that better chatbots will eventually develop general AI are delusional. I don't know if anyone with more than a passing interest actually does believe this, so it feels like this paper is arguing against a straw man.