Predictions on the record
Explore Alan Turing's AGI and superintelligence timeline: 3 sourced statements from Oct 1950 to Jan 14, 1952. Compare what was said, when it was said, and any predicted arrival date.
This is a curated record, not a complete history or a scorecard. AGI and ASI labels group related language; the original wording and caveats remain below. How we document claims.
Prediction · AGI
Expected around 2000
Around 2000, computers could make an average interrogator misidentify them at least 30% of the time in a five-minute imitation game.
Source summary · not a verbatim quotation.
This was a specific conversational-test prediction with a storage assumption, not a claim that computers would perform every human task. The paper separately expressed hope for competition across intellectual fields.
Prediction · AGI
No arrival date specified
If machines capable of thinking were built, they would probably surpass human intellectual powers soon afterward.
Source summary · not a verbatim quotation.
A conditional forecast of rapid improvement after machine thinking begins. It provides no calendar date for the first thinking machine; the surviving text is dated approximately 1951.
Prediction · AGI
Not before 2052 · no upper bound
An unrestricted imitation-game contest would be at least a century away.
Source summary · not a verbatim quotation.
Responding to Max Newman's question about a machine having a chance with unrestricted questions, Turing gave a lower bound, not a deadline. This differs from his limited five-minute test prediction in 1950.