Turing and the evaluation of intelligence

The article deals with some ideas by Turing concern ing the background and the birth of the well-known Turing Test, showing the e volution of the main question proposed by Turing on thinking machine. The notions he used, especially that one of imitation, are not so much exactly defined a nd shaped, but for this very reason they have had a deep impact in artificial in telligence and cognitive science research from an epistemological point of v iew. Then, it is suggested that the fundamental concept involved in Turing’s imitat ion game, conceived as a test for detecting the presence of intelligence in an ar tificial entity, is the concept of interaction, that Turing adopts in a wider, more in tuitive and more fruitful sense than the one that is proper to the current research in interactive computing.