Skip to main content

Your submission was sent successfully! Close

Thank you for signing up for our newsletter!
In these regular emails you will find the latest updates from Canonical and upcoming events where you can meet our team.Close

Thank you for contacting us. A member of our team will be in touch shortly. Close

  1. Blog
  2. Article

Canonical
on 24 March 2010

Ada Lovelace and the Turing Test


In Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Alan Turing describes the famous Turing test for detecting machine intelligence. Did you know that Turing’s thesis was heavily influenced by Ada Lovelace’s critique of Babbage’s Analytical Engine, wherein she states that “the Analytical Engine has no pretensions to originate anything,” arguing that computing machines do not exhibit creativity? You can read more about Lovelace’s critique of the possibility of machine creativity, and how this critique informed Turing’s work on machine intelligence in my paper, Computing Machinery and Creativity.

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

Related posts


Lyubomir Popov
17 February 2025

A deep dive into our grid system and typography for the A4 format

Ubuntu Article

We recently redesigned our whitepapers as part of our broader rebranding project. Let’s look at some of the ideas behind our approach to layout and typography. The goal? A reliable, accessible modular system that communicates with clarity, purpose and precision across mediums — qualities that tie directly back to our brand values. Context ...


piperdeck
20 January 2025

An Introduction to Open Source Licensing for complete beginners

Design Article

Open source is one of the most exciting, but often misunderstood, innovations of our modern world. I still remember the first time I installed linux on my laptop, saw the vast array of packages I could install on it, all the utilities and libraries that make it work, all the forum threads filled with advice ...


Maximilian Blazek
6 November 2024

Designing Canonical’s Figma libraries for performance and structure

Design Article

How Canonical’s Design team rebuilt their Figma libraries, with practical guidelines on structure, performance, and maintenance processes. ...