Does AI already have human-level intelligence? The evidence is clear

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The vision of human-level machine intelligence laid out by Alan Turing in the 1950s is now a reality. Eyes unclouded by dread or hype will help us to prepare for what comes next.

By

  1. Eddy Keming Chen

    1. Eddy Keming Chen is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California, USA.

  2. Mikhail Belkin

    1. Mikhail Belkin is a professor of artificial intelligence, data science, and computer science at the University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California, USA.

  3. Leon Bergen

    1. Leon Bergen is an associate professor of linguistics and computer science at the University of California, San Diego, USA, and a member of technical staff at Goodfire AI in San Francisco, California, USA.

  4. David Danks

    1. David Danks is a professor of data science, philosophy and policy at the University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California, USA.

A stylised futuristic illustration showing a human face constructed from small digital blocks rising out of a computer microchip, with bright eyes and glowing circuit lines around it, suggesting artificial intelligence.

Illustration: Jacey

In 1950, in a paper entitled ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’1, Alan Turing proposed his ‘imitation game’. Now known as the Turing test, it addressed a question that seemed purely hypothetical: could machines display the kind of flexible, general cognitive competence that is characteristic of human thought, such that they could pass themselves off as humans to unaware humans?

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Nature 650, 36-40 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00285-6

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Competing Interests

L.B. is an employee of Goodfire AI, an AI interpretability company. Goodfire had no role in the conceptualization, writing or decision to publish this work

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