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.

• 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