Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Alan Turing (1950)

This is the paper that proposed what we now call the "Turing Test", and it goes into some pretty excellent (and, y'know, currently relevant) detail. It's also got two of my favorite quotes of all time:

On intelligence, and how it can be discussed using a nuclear reaction metaphor:

> There does seem to be one for the human mind. The majority of them seem to be ‘sub-critical’, i.e. to correspond in this analogy to piles of sub-critical size. An idea presented to such a mind will on average give rise to less than one idea in reply. A smallish proportion are super-critical. An idea presented to such a mind may give rise to a whole ‘theory’ consisting of secondary, tertiary and more remote ideas. Animals minds seem to be very definitely sub-critical. Adhering to this analogy we ask, ‘Can a machine be made to be super-critical?’

Counter-arguments to arguments that machines can never think:

> (2) The ‘Heads in the Sand’ Objection

> “The consequences of machines thinking would be too dreadful. Let us hope and believe that they cannot do so.”

> I do not think that this argument is sufficiently substantial to require refutation. Consolation would be more appropriate...