Can a machine think—or just do a convincing imitation?

Alan Turing’s famous test of Artificial Intelligence posed a simple question: if a machine can hold a conversation indistinguishable from a human, does that mean it’s intelligent? For decades, there was no need to answer—machines couldn’t pass the test.

 

Today’s large language models probably can—flawlessly, fluently, and insistently—but still claim they are not conscious, not sentient, not real minds.

 

So, if thinking requires more than fluent imitation, where does that leave us?

 

Models in the Mind takes a long view, tracing how humans have understood thought, soul, and selfhood from ancient times to the age of artificial intelligence.

From the instincts of amoebae to the abstractions of philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians. From spirits to clockwork, from animist myths to neural networks, this is a sweeping yet, I hope, accessible exploration of how we’ve tried to explain—and model—what goes on inside our heads.

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Along the way, it asks difficult questions: What do we mean by “mind”? Can intelligence be measured by function alone? What happens when our models begin to outpace our understanding? And what if the models we build start to shape us?