AI is one of the most transformational technologies in today’s world. It affects every industry, from healthcare to finance, education, and entertainment. You would not believe that modern AI has much ancient history behind it, possibly going back centuries. This article attempts to trace the history of AI from conceptual beginnings in philosophy and mythology into rapid advances that have led to its current-day state.
The Early Foundations: AI in Mythology and Philosophy
The idea of artificial beings with human-like intelligence is not new. Many ancient myths and legends spoke of artificial entities, animated either by supernatural means or mechanically. For example, in Greek mythology, Talos-the-bronze automaton created by Hephaestus-was assigned the duty of guarding Crete.
Also, the Chinese and Indian traditions have myths about artificial beings that execute human tasks even long before scientific explorations of AI began.
Philosophers like Aristotle, Descartes, and Leibniz were thinking about machines that could imitate human thought. In the 17th century, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz suggested the binary system, which later became the foundation of modern computing.
The Birth of Computer Science and AI (1900s–1950s)
The formal foundations of AI date back to the early part of the twentieth century and the appearance of logic-based reasoning in modern computing. British mathematician Alan Turing played a pivotal role in building the foundations upon which artificial intelligence could be constructed. In the 1936 period, he introduced a concept called the universal machine, or the Turing Machine-now an entity known to perform calculations according to sets of rules.
He also during World War II deciphered messages by cracking the German Enigma code-most importantly bringing out the capability of computation in problem solving. The 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” by him brought to the world the Turing Test, in which judgment could be delivered over whether the actions of a machine could resemble those of human beings or not.
When was artificial intelligence invented?
In the year 1956, John McCarthy was being given credit when the term “Artificial Intelligence” was invented, and it was at the Dartmouth Conference that it began to have its vogue. But the genesis of a few concepts about artificial intelligence began much earlier, being heavily influenced by mathematics and philosophy. Early computing concepts, as envisaged by Alan Turing during the ’30s and ’40s adoption of works from these disciplines, provided foundational watermarks for the whole idea behind AI.
AI Winter (1970s–1980s)
The so-called “AI Winter” came into existence when the enthusiasm for AI research vanished, and yet certain impediments occurred in the seventies and eighties. The expectations were overripe, and funding from governments and organisations dwindled because of the unfulfilled promises.
Rule-based expert systems gained a little traction during this period. MYCIN, for instance, helped physicians diagnose infections, but those systems were inherently static and could not learn from data, thus severely limiting their usefulness.
Rise of Machine-Learning (1990s-2000s)
This impetus dwindled during the 1980s but revived in the 1990s, owing to the development of machine-learning algorithms. In their endeavor to create value, researchers began to shun rule-based systems instead, underlying statistical methods, neural networks, and data-driven approaches.
But this has changed since 1997, when the victory of IBM’s Deep Blue over the world’s chess champion Garry Kasparov became a landmark in artificial intelligence. There were developments in the artificial intelligence capabilities for speech recognition, computer vision, and robotics.
Deep Learning Revolution (2010s-Present)
The 2010s witnessed a steep rise in AI due to deep learning, a class of machine learning using neural networks to process plenty of data. Great advancement in AI was witnessed due to the three trends, large dataset availability, higher computing power, and better algorithms.
Key milestones were:
- 2011: IBM’s Watson defeated human champions at the quiz game Jeopardy!
- 2012: An unprecedented accuracy in image recognition was obtained by Google for a deep learning model.
- 2016: AlphaGo from DeepMind defeated a human champion in the very complex game of Go.
- 2020s: AI applications from ChatGPT to self-driving cars to advanced robotics are widely adopted.
Who made artificial intelligence?
The creation of artificial intelligence (AI) entailed several pioneers, who had been devotees through the generations for deciding about what AI is and understands. Among them are:
1. Alan Turing-1912-1954
Did propose the idea of a “universal machine” (Turing Machine), in 1936.
Developed Turing Test in 1950 to check machine intelligence.
2. John McCarthy-1927-2011
Coined the phrase “Artificial Intelligence” in 1956.
Organised the Dartmouth Conference, which put AI finally as a formal research area.
Found LISP, one of the first programming languages for AI.
3. Marvin Minsky-1927-2016
One of the founders of the MIT AI Laboratory and early developer of AI.
Worked on neural networks, machine learning, and robotics.
4. Allen Newell & Herbert Simon
Logic Theorist (1955), widely considered one of the first AI programmes.
Developed a General problem solver (GPS), an early reasoning system of AI.
They were all instrumental in laying the groundwork for modern AI. However, more advancements by massive research groups and machine learning and deep learning developed within neural networks have improved this structure.
The Future of AI
With its scope and promise of unlimited hope and buoyancy in advanced general artificial intelligence, its ethical applications, and even in the ambit of human AI collaboration, today heralds a bright future for AI. Shape your future with AI training at Dubai Premier Centre.
The continual sophistication of AI will most probably see its increased use in many avenues such as healthcare, finance, education, and space exploration.
Dating back to the myths of ancient civilizations, the history of AI has been an interesting one wrought by innovation and with frequent setbacks that led finally to innovations par excellence. Every form of AI has changed the very way we have come to view and interact with technology, forging ahead in its own right. If one were to think of what lies before AI onward, then the prospective evolution of AI would continue in defining the future within realms not yet conceived of.