Mai Sakurajima.
basement dwelling rn
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What is artificial intelligence?
Artificial intelligence is a specialty within computer science that is concerned with creating systems that can replicate human intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They do this by taking in a myriad of data, processing it, and learning from their past in order to streamline and improve in the future. A normal computer program would need human interference in order to fix bugs and improve processes.
Learn more about AI.
The history of artificial intelligence:
The idea of “artificial intelligence” goes back thousands of years, to ancient philosophers considering questions of life and death. In ancient times, inventors made things called “automatons” which were mechanical and moved independently of human intervention. The word “automaton” comes from ancient Greek, and means “acting of one’s own will.” One of the earliest records of an automaton comes from 400 BCE and refers to a mechanical pigeon created by a friend of the philosopher Plato. Many years later, one of the most famous automatons was created by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1495.
So while the idea of a machine being able to function on its own is ancient, for the purposes of this article, we’re going to focus on the 20th century, when engineers and scientists began to make strides toward our modern-day AI.
Groundwork for AI: 1900-1950
In the early 1900s, there was a lot of media created that centered around the idea of artificial humans. So much so that scientists of all sorts started asking the question: is it possible to create an artificial brain? Some creators even made some versions of what we now call “robots” (and the word was coined in a Czech play in 1921) though most of them were relatively simple. These were steam-powered for the most part, and some could make facial expressions and even walk.
Dates of note:
• 1921: Czech playwright Karel Čapek released a science fiction play “Rossum’s Universal Robots ” which introduced the idea of “artificial people” which he named robots. This was the first known use of the word.
• 1929: Japanese professor Makoto Nishimura built the first Japanese robot, named Gakutensoku .
• 1949: Computer scientist Edmund Callis Berkley published the book “Giant Brains, or Machines that Think ” which compared the newer models of computers to human brains.
Birth of AI: 1950-1956
This range of time was when the interest in AI really came to a head. Alan Turing published his work “Computer Machinery and Intelligence” which eventually became The Turing Test, which experts used to measure computer intelligence. The term “artificial intelligence” was coined and came into popular use.
Dates of note:
• 1950: Alan Turing published “Computer Machinery and Intelligence ” which proposed a test of machine intelligence called The Imitation Game.
• 1952: A computer scientist named Arthur Samuel developed a program to play checkers, which is the first to ever learn the game independently.
• 1955: John McCarthy held a workshop at Dartmouth on “artificial intelligence” which is the first use of the word, and how it came into popular usage.
AI maturation: 1957-1979
The time between when the phrase “artificial intelligence” was created, and the 1980s was a period of both rapid growth and struggle for AI research. The late 1950s through the 1960s was a time of creation. From programming languages that are still in use to this day to books and films that explored the idea of robots, AI became a mainstream idea quickly.
The 1970s showed similar improvements, such as the first anthropomorphic robot being built in Japan, to the first example of an autonomous vehicle being built by an engineering grad student. However, it was also a time of struggle for AI research, as the U.S. government showed little interest in continuing to fund AI research.
Notable dates include:
• 1958: John McCarthy created LISP (acronym for List Processing), the first programming language for AI research, which is still in popular use to this day.
• 1959: Arthur Samuel created the term “machine learning” when doing a speech about teaching machines to play chess better than the humans who programmed them.
• 1961: The first industrial robot Unimate started working on an assembly line at General Motors in New Jersey, tasked with transporting die casings and welding parts on cars (which was deemed too dangerous for humans).
• 1965: Edward Feigenbaum and Joshua Lederberg created the first “expert system” which was a form of AI programmed to replicate the thinking and decision-making abilities of human experts.
• 1966: Joseph Weizenbaum created the first “chatterbot” (later shortened to chatbot), ELIZA, a mock psychotherapist, that used natural language processing (NLP) to converse with humans.1968: Soviet mathematician Alexey Ivakhnenko published “Group Method of Data Handling” in the journal “Avtomatika,” which proposed a new approach to AI that would later become what we now know as “Deep Learning.”
• 1973: An applied mathematician named James Lighthill gave a report to the British Science Council, underlining that strides were not as impressive as those that had been promised by scientists, which led to much-reduced support and funding for AI research from the British government.
• 1979: James L. Adams created The Standford Cart in 1961, which became one of the first examples of an autonomous vehicle. In ‘79, it successfully navigated a room full of chairs without human interference.
• 1979: The American Association of Artificial Intelligence which is now known as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) was founded.
Artificial intelligence is a specialty within computer science that is concerned with creating systems that can replicate human intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They do this by taking in a myriad of data, processing it, and learning from their past in order to streamline and improve in the future. A normal computer program would need human interference in order to fix bugs and improve processes.
Learn more about AI.
The history of artificial intelligence:
The idea of “artificial intelligence” goes back thousands of years, to ancient philosophers considering questions of life and death. In ancient times, inventors made things called “automatons” which were mechanical and moved independently of human intervention. The word “automaton” comes from ancient Greek, and means “acting of one’s own will.” One of the earliest records of an automaton comes from 400 BCE and refers to a mechanical pigeon created by a friend of the philosopher Plato. Many years later, one of the most famous automatons was created by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1495.
So while the idea of a machine being able to function on its own is ancient, for the purposes of this article, we’re going to focus on the 20th century, when engineers and scientists began to make strides toward our modern-day AI.
Groundwork for AI: 1900-1950
In the early 1900s, there was a lot of media created that centered around the idea of artificial humans. So much so that scientists of all sorts started asking the question: is it possible to create an artificial brain? Some creators even made some versions of what we now call “robots” (and the word was coined in a Czech play in 1921) though most of them were relatively simple. These were steam-powered for the most part, and some could make facial expressions and even walk.
Dates of note:
• 1921: Czech playwright Karel Čapek released a science fiction play “Rossum’s Universal Robots ” which introduced the idea of “artificial people” which he named robots. This was the first known use of the word.
• 1929: Japanese professor Makoto Nishimura built the first Japanese robot, named Gakutensoku .
• 1949: Computer scientist Edmund Callis Berkley published the book “Giant Brains, or Machines that Think ” which compared the newer models of computers to human brains.
Birth of AI: 1950-1956
This range of time was when the interest in AI really came to a head. Alan Turing published his work “Computer Machinery and Intelligence” which eventually became The Turing Test, which experts used to measure computer intelligence. The term “artificial intelligence” was coined and came into popular use.
Dates of note:
• 1950: Alan Turing published “Computer Machinery and Intelligence ” which proposed a test of machine intelligence called The Imitation Game.
• 1952: A computer scientist named Arthur Samuel developed a program to play checkers, which is the first to ever learn the game independently.
• 1955: John McCarthy held a workshop at Dartmouth on “artificial intelligence” which is the first use of the word, and how it came into popular usage.
AI maturation: 1957-1979
The time between when the phrase “artificial intelligence” was created, and the 1980s was a period of both rapid growth and struggle for AI research. The late 1950s through the 1960s was a time of creation. From programming languages that are still in use to this day to books and films that explored the idea of robots, AI became a mainstream idea quickly.
The 1970s showed similar improvements, such as the first anthropomorphic robot being built in Japan, to the first example of an autonomous vehicle being built by an engineering grad student. However, it was also a time of struggle for AI research, as the U.S. government showed little interest in continuing to fund AI research.
Notable dates include:
• 1958: John McCarthy created LISP (acronym for List Processing), the first programming language for AI research, which is still in popular use to this day.
• 1959: Arthur Samuel created the term “machine learning” when doing a speech about teaching machines to play chess better than the humans who programmed them.
• 1961: The first industrial robot Unimate started working on an assembly line at General Motors in New Jersey, tasked with transporting die casings and welding parts on cars (which was deemed too dangerous for humans).
• 1965: Edward Feigenbaum and Joshua Lederberg created the first “expert system” which was a form of AI programmed to replicate the thinking and decision-making abilities of human experts.
• 1966: Joseph Weizenbaum created the first “chatterbot” (later shortened to chatbot), ELIZA, a mock psychotherapist, that used natural language processing (NLP) to converse with humans.1968: Soviet mathematician Alexey Ivakhnenko published “Group Method of Data Handling” in the journal “Avtomatika,” which proposed a new approach to AI that would later become what we now know as “Deep Learning.”
• 1973: An applied mathematician named James Lighthill gave a report to the British Science Council, underlining that strides were not as impressive as those that had been promised by scientists, which led to much-reduced support and funding for AI research from the British government.
• 1979: James L. Adams created The Standford Cart in 1961, which became one of the first examples of an autonomous vehicle. In ‘79, it successfully navigated a room full of chairs without human interference.
• 1979: The American Association of Artificial Intelligence which is now known as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) was founded.
