Although I'm not prepared to move up my prediction of a computer passing the Turing test by 2029, the progress that has been achieved in systems like Watson should give anyone substantial confidence that the advent of Turing-level AI is close at hand. If one were to create a version of Watson that was optimized for the Turing test, it would probably come pretty close.
Ray Kurzweil (2012). “How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed”, p.180, Penguin
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