Turing test

A means for testing of a computer's capability to perform human-like conversation. The test proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with two other hidden entities, one a human and the other a machine; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test. It is assumed that both the human and the machine try to appear human, the conversation is usually limited to a text-only channel such as a teletype machine as Turing suggested or, more recently, instant messaging.