Artificial Intelligence Throughout History

Artificial intelligence has come a long way since Alan Turing created a standard for what determined a machine to be intelligent in the 1950s. This infographic shows how AI has changed throughout the years.

Find out about key breakthroughs in the development of AI over 70 years, from the Turing Test to driverless cars.

Through chess, Jeopardy, poker and checkers, Deep Blue, Watson, Libratus and Chinook changed the way humans think about artificial intelligence.

In this brief history, the beginnings of artificial intelligence are traced to philosophy, fiction, and imagination. Early inventions in electronics, engineering, and many other disciplines have influenced AI.

Between Microsoft's racist chatbot to beating the world GO champion, artificial intelligence has better things to do than whatever we're afraid of. Here's a recap of the highlights.

Computer History Museum, Timeline of Computer History.

Throughout human history, people have used technology to model themselves. There is evidence of this from ancient China, Egypt, and Greece that bears witness to the universality of this activity. Each new technology has, in its turn, been exploited to build intelligent agents or models of mind.

My new book Surviving AI (Three Cs) argues that AI will continue to bring enormous benefits, but that it will also present a series of formidable challenges.

This Appendix is based primarily on Nilsson's book[140] and written from the prevalent current perspective, which focuses on data intensive methods and big data. However important, this focus has not yet shown itself to be the solution to all problems. A complete and fully balanced history of the field is beyond the scope of this document.

Key milestones in the evolution of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics.

The intellectual roots of AI, and the concept of intelligent machines, may be found in Greek mythology. Intelligent artifacts appear in literature since then, with real (and fraudulent) mechanical devices actually demonstrated to behave with some degree of intelligence. Some of these conceptual achievements are listed below under "Ancient History." After modern computers became available, following World War II, it has become possible to create programs that perform difficult intellectual tasks. From these programs, general tools are constructed which have applications in a wide variety of everday problems. Some of these computational milestones are listed below under "Modern History."

The history of Artificial Intelligence (AI) began in antiquity, with myths, stories and rumors of artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen; as Pamela McCorduck writes, AI began with "an ancient wish to forge the gods."