Most people believe AI is a recent invention. In reality, primitive forms of artificial intelligence have been around for almost 100 years now. Here’s a brief history of AI’s evolution to today:
Pre-1950s: Foundations
- 1843: Ada Lovelace writes about Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, discussing the concept of a machine that could manipulate symbols and even create music and art.
- 1936: Alan Turing develops the Turing Machine concept, a theoretical construct that can simulate any algorithm's logic.
- 1943: Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts create a computational model for neural networks.
1950s: The Birth of AI
- 1950: Alan Turing introduces the Turing Test to determine if a machine can exhibit intelligent behavior.
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- 1956: The Dartmouth Workshop, considered the birth of AI as a field, is organized by John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon.
- 1959: Arthur Samuel develops a checkers-playing program, demonstrating machine learning.
1960s: Early Progress
- 1961: The first industrial robot, Unimate, is installed at General Motors.
- 1965: Joseph Weizenbaum develops ELIZA, an early natural language processing program.
1970s: AI Winter Begins
- 1973: The Lighthill Report criticizes AI's progress in the UK, leading to reduced funding.
- 1979: The Stanford Cart, an early autonomous vehicle, successfully navigates a room filled with chairs.
1980s: Expert Systems and Revival
- 1980: Rule-based expert systems become popular.
- 1986: The development of backpropagation algorithms revolutionizes training in neural networks.
1990s: Machine Learning Emerges