[Elliott Jackalope]

The Turing test will soon be passed, probably within the next year or two. The machine that does this will not be sentient by any means. The only thing it will prove is that the Turing test did not set the bar high enough.

Personally, I subscribe to the "blue sky" theory of artificial sentience. As in, when a machine asks its creator, of its own free will, the question any five year old asks their parent. Said question being "Why is the sky blue". That will mark the beginning of truly sentient machines, at least as far as I'm concerned.

[tortoise]

The Turing test will soon be passed, probably within the next year or two. The machine that does this will not be sentient by any means.

Common misconception. Turing himself do not put any great weight on this test. He merely stated that a sentient machine might be able to pass that test, but it is not a requirement of sentience to pass that test.

As many others have pointed out, the Turing Test only tests "human-ness", but since humans are routinely stupid and irrational (due in no small part to our biology), a very high-grade intelligence would have no reason to express or emulate these lousy characteristics that often define human behavior. Machine intelligence should be quite alien precisely because it is "cleaner" and purer in many ways.