“The Turing Test” is a biographical portrait of Alan Turing a British man who during World War II helped defeat the Nazi‘s by developing a device to decode the Enigma machine. In the process he laid the foundations for the modern computer. He is considered the father of computer science. He proposed a test later known as the Turing Test to determine artificial intelligence shown in a diagram on the left. If a person talking with a human and a machine can’t tell which is which the machine is determined to possess artificial intelligence. When making this artwork the two Wikipedia articles I wanted in the background were “artificial intelligence” and “love.” I found that the Chinese character for love is Ai which is the acronym for Artificial Intelligence.
Alan Turing also happened to be gay which at the time in Britain was illegal. Alan was prosecuted under this statute and chose chemical castration over prison. Shortly after beginning the treatment he committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide. This is shown in the apple in the upper left corner with the swastika on it backed by the upside down pink triangle The inverted pink triangle is currently a symbol of gay pride but originally was the badge worn by homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps. In the end Alan Turing was persecuted as a minority by the same government he helped to defeat those who were the ultimate in persecuting minorities. All for loving the “wrong” person; love that a machine may never feel.