Quiz: The Dream of Thinking Machines

Question 1

Who proposed the Universal Turing Machine?

• ✓Charles Babbage
• ✓Alan Turing
• ✓John McCarthy
• ✓Marvin Minsky

Question 2

Who is widely recognized as the first computer programmer?

• ✓Ada Lovelace
• ✓Grace Hopper
• ✓Blaise Pascal
• ✓Alan Turing

Question 3

What was the primary purpose of the Turing Test?

• ✓Measure processing speed
• ✓Evaluate whether a machine could exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from a human in conversation
• ✓Measure memory usage
• ✓Evaluate mathematical accuracy

Question 4

Which machine is considered a conceptual predecessor of modern programmable computers?

• ✓Pascaline
• ✓Analytical Engine
• ✓ENIAC only
• ✓Deep Blue

Question 5

True or false: Artificial Intelligence began with ChatGPT.

• ✓True
• ✓False

Question 6

Why did Boolean logic matter for computing?

• ✓It made machines conscious
• ✓It showed how true-or-false statements could be combined into reliable decisions
• ✓It replaced all mathematics
• ✓It was the first chatbot architecture

Question 7

Which statement best captures the importance of Babbage and Lovelace together?

• ✓They built the first LLM
• ✓They proved machines are conscious
• ✓They helped establish the idea of programmable computation
• ✓They invented the internet

Question 8

The Dartmouth Conference is important because:

• ✓It created the first working AI product
• ✓It invented neural networks
• ✓It helped establish Artificial Intelligence as a named research field
• ✓It ended the need for philosophy

Question 9

Scenario: A manager says, "AI appeared suddenly because LLMs appeared suddenly." What is the best response? Strong answer should mention: - Modern LLMs are recent, but AI's foundations are old. - Philosophy, logic, mathematics, computation, and programming all contributed. - New tools sit on top of older engineering ideas. Model answer: > LLMs are recent, but AI did not appear suddenly. They depend on centuries of progress in reasoning, logic, mathematics, computation, programming, and machine learning.

Question 10

What is the main engineering lesson from this chapter's history?

• ✓Only mathematicians can learn AI
• ✓AI is only about tools
• ✓AI is built from understandable ideas: representation, rules, computation, feedback, and engineering judgment
• ✓History is irrelevant to engineering