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Alan Turing
In 1950, Turing published “Computer Machinery and Intelligence”. Turing argued that a program must be written that directs a computer to learn. That way a computer will be able to build its own understandings. Due to the lack of technology at the time he was unable to prove his theory, but is still credited with conceptualizing AI before it existed. -
John McCarthy
In the summer of 1956 John McCarthy, a Dartmouth mathematics professor, invited a small group of researches to a summer-long workshop to focus on the possibility of thinking machines. This workshop came to be known as the Dartmouth conference. Because of the work those individuals did that summer, they are credited with founding the field of artificial intelligence. -
AI Winter
An AI winter is a period of disillusionment, reduced funding, and interest in artificial intelligence research. This is the result of intense optimism for AI followed by a stark realization of its limitations. Resulting, in what is known as an AI winter. What is possible is not the same as what can be proven. In 1984 the term AI winter first appeared. -
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
In 1979 the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence was founded. This is a nonprofit scientific society dedicated to advancing the understanding of mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior in machines. Their goal of creating artificial intelligence that reaches or exceeds human intelligence has yet to be achieved. They’ve yet to develop a coordinated vision and plan to develop human-level AI, but the society still exists today. -
Navlab 1
In 1986 production began on the first AI self-driven car called the Navlab 1. Ernst Dickmanns modified a Mercedes van with a computer system and sensors to read the environment. The vehicle was only capable of driving on roads without other cars and passengers. Most importantly, this vehicle used an early version of LiDAR to create 3D models of the Earth’s surface similar to the self-driving cars of today. -
Deep Blue
In 1995 IBM created a program called Deep Blue which could play chess. It wasn’t released until 1996, and upgraded in 1997 to ultimately beat reigning chess champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game match under standard tournament controls. This moment was crucial in reigniting interest in AI, because this technology advanced supercomputers to tackle complex calculations resulting in the advancement to quality of life for people. -
Sojourner
In 1997 Sojourner, Nasa’s first Mars rover landed on Mars. This was the first Nasa rover to utilize AI. While Sojourner’s AI was quite basic, it’s mission allowed for AI advancement in future Mars rovers. Today, the Nasa Mars rovers are able to use real-time decision making, autonomous navigation, and efficiently collect data. This is a huge leap forward from Sojourner’s mathematical model AI that had it run from danger. -
Kismet
In the late 1990’s a robot head, named Kismet, utilized AI to recognize and simulate human emotions through facial expressions, vocalizations, and movement. This was the creation of Dr. Cynthia Breazeal in MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. While the actual project didn’t come to fruition until 2000, her research can be traced back to 1997. Kismet contained sensors, a microphone, and programming that outlined “human emotion processes”. -
IBM Watson
In 2011, many years after IBM’s Deep Blue program, another competitive computer system called IBM Watson was created as part of IBM’s DeepQA. It used artificial intelligence to answer questions in natural language. Watson DeepQA was fed data from encyclopedias and across the internet. It was designed to receive natural language questions and respond accordingly. As a result, it beat two of the show's most formidable all-time champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. -
ChatGPT
In 2022 OpenAI released the AI chatbot ChatGPT. Being trained on billions of inputs improved its natural language processing abilities. Unlike previous chatbots, ChatGPT can ask follow-up questions and recognize inappropriate prompts. So, it’s best to be polite when asking it questions if you want an accurate response. It’s generative pre-training transformer architecture is a type of neural network designed for natural language processing tasks.