Abstract

The imitation game, the recent biopic about Alan Turing's efforts to decipher Nazi naval codes, was showered with award nominations. It even won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. One thing it won't win any awards for, though, is its portrayal of the "imitation game" itself-Turing's proposed test of machine thinking, which hinges on whether a computer can convincingly imitate a person. The Turing test, as it is now called, doesn't really feature in the file. (Given that the movie gets so much of the history wrong, perhaps that's a good thing).