By 2029 no computer or “machine intelligence” will have passed the Turing Test
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
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HN comment orderI was struck by the prescience and clarity of Mitch Kapor's writing. He correctly predicted that a computer would be able to win on Jeopardy [0], 9 years before the fact. And he understood that the Turing Test was more of a thought experiment than an actual test [1], which is why I assume he took the bet in the first place. Conversation is actually a rather poor measure of intelligence. I would say, show me a computer that can…
By 2029, and increasing number of humans will fail the Turing Test.
The description of the test setup is very precise, and specifies, for example, that the interviews with the candidates last "two hours each", with multiple judges. For an AI to keep up an internally-consistent act for that long (especially against an adversarial interrogation) it will probably need specific coaching and abilities that don't come automatically from scaling up GPT-3 or LaMDA, but I still think it's looking like Kurzweil might win this one.
I'm entirely on Mitch Kapor's side on this issue, and I think what he doesn't say here is that Turing Test is a nonsense. Not only it would be impossible to imitate personal history, to answer all questions in a psychologically correct manner (taking into account childhood stories, libido etc.) - not only that. We expect intelligent machines to solve hard problems, or to replace us in some routine, boring tasks that can't be formalized on ordinary algorithmic machines, etc…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 101
- Total comments
- 138
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-01-20 | Mitch Kapor vs. Ray Kurzweil: A $20k Bet on Turing Test | mojuba | 2 | 2 |
| 2010-08-21 | By 2029 no computer will have passed the Turing Test. | chrislloyd | 1 | 2 |
| 2012-02-10 | By 2029 no computer will have passed the Turing TestFirst breakout | dmitriy_ko | 34 | 52 |
| 2015-03-29 | By 2029 no computer or “machine intelligence” will have passed the Turing TestBest thread · Latest 20+ point return | fhinson | 55 | 79 |
| 2022-06-13 | By 2029 no computer / “machine intelligence” will have passed the Turing Test | dane-pgp | 2 | 2 |
| 2022-12-15 | By 2029 no computer will have passed the Turing Test (2002) | simonebrunozzi | 2 | 0 |
| 2025-07-07 | LongBets 1: By 2029 no computer will have passed the Turing test (2002) | martincmartin | 3 | 0 |
| 2025-10-07 | In 2002, Mitch Kapor bet $20k that no AI would pass the Turing Test before 2029 | aleda145 | 2 | 1 |