The question of whether machines can truly think has occupied philosophers and computer scientists (0) ALIKE for the better part of a century. Alan Turing famously proposed that if a machine could converse with a human without 1 identified as artificial, it should be considered intelligent. Simple 2 this test may appear, it raises profound questions about the nature of consciousness itself. 3 would once have seemed the stuff of science fiction — a computer defeating the world chess champion, for instance — is now a matter of historical record. So rapidly 4 artificial intelligence advanced in recent years that many of the benchmarks once thought to be decades away have already been surpassed. 5 impressive these achievements undoubtedly are, they tell us remarkably little about whether machines experience anything resembling human awareness. Were a computer 6 produce a work of art indistinguishable from one created by a human, it would still not follow that the machine had felt anything in the process of creating it. It is precisely this distinction — 7 doing and understanding — that continues to fuel the debate. Not until we have a clearer definition of consciousness itself 8 we be in a position to settle the question once and for all.