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Alan Turing

1912–1954 · British

Formalized computation and algorithms, and proposed a practical test for machine intelligence.

Ideas: Turing Machine, Turing Test
Affiliations: University of Cambridge, Bletchley Park, University of Manchester

Contribution: Defined the Turing machine — a simple model that can run any algorithm a digital computer can run.
Helped break wartime ciphers at Bletchley Park, showing that systematic computation could change real outcomes.
Proposed the Imitation Game (the Turing Test) as a practical way to talk about machine intelligence.
Key observations: Computation is not a particular brand of box; it is a class of step-by-step procedures.
Some questions about "thinking" get clearer if you ask what a machine would have to do to fool a careful observer.
Limits matter too: some problems cannot be decided by any algorithm.
Conclusions: When people debate whether AI is "really intelligent," they are often still arguing in Turing's frame — behavior under a test.
Teach algorithms as procedures anyone (or anything) can follow, not as magic inside a gadget.
Knowing what computation can and cannot decide is part of AI literacy.

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