Competition Call for GSD students: Design the Turing Test

Coinciding with the 100th Anniversary of mathematician Alan Turing‘s birth, The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments (CHSI) at Harvard University will be hosting an exhibition dedicated to his work. This exhibition will be open to the public through-out the Fall 2012 semester.

As part of this show, the CHSI, in collaboration with metaLAB, are hosting a design competition, open to the GSD student body.

Considered one of the hallmark works of Artificial Intelligence, Turing’s 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” describes in detail a procedure for judging if machine intelligence has been achieved— the now famous Turing Test.

Though rigorously described in words latent with architectural implications, there is no explicit design for constructing the Turing Test.

Your challenge — Spatialize the Turing Test.

Participants may submit to one or both of two proposal options (one being conceptual and the other to be built in the CHSI exhibition space). The first place conceptual proposal will receive a $500 honorarium; the winning practical proposal will receive a $500 honorarium and a $1500 grant to construct his or her design in the exhibition space (if the designer wishes to do so).

Submission Guidelines Interested designers should consult the full Brief and Submission Guidelines.

Deadline Proposals may be submitted as email attachments to the same address no later than May 18, 2012. The winners will be contacted by email by May 31.

Contact For more information on the exhibition and the design parameters, email chsi@fas.harvard.edu.