The History of AI

Egyptian folklore refers to robots living amongst humans but they imagined them to be made out of stone. The idea of creating life like machines is an old one that has raised a number of ethical concerns.Then in 1640, Descartes argued that although machines can pass as animals, they can never pass as humans.

Years later in 1822, Charles Babbage invented the difference engine which some regard as the first computer. 120 years later in 1941 the first electronic computer was invented. This invention revolutionized every aspect of storing and processing information.

The name Artificial Intelligence came from John McCarthy in 1956 when he ran the ‘Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence’ which brought together the founders of AI. This project aimed to understand how the human brain works in order to program a robot to adapt to its environment.In 1958 McCarthy also created the LISP language. LISP stands for LISt Processing, and it was the language of choice among most AI developers.

In 1963 the United States government gave MIT 2.2million dollars to be used in researching AI. This was given so that the US would stay ahead of the Soviet Union in technological advancements.

In 1971 Terry Winograd created ‘SHRDLU’ at MIT to solve spatial problems and logic problems. It proved that a computer is capable of understanding and interpreting any pre defined world.

During the 1980's the computer impact hit the world as companies learned how much money they could save with the efficiency of computers. In 1986, US sales of AI hardware and software surged to $425 million. Many of the big companies were using XCON, an expert system designed to program the large VAX computers. Although in 1986-87 the demand in AI systems decreased, and the industry lost almost a half of a billion dollars.

AI slowly recovered and in 1991, DARPA reported that an AI-based logistics planning tool, DART, was used in military operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm which repaid decades of research. In 1996 the tamagotchi was introduced and became one of the most popular toys of the 90's. In 1997, IBM developed an Expert system named Deep Blue which showed the world the potential of computer software when it beat Gary Kasparov world chess champion in a game of chess.

The New Millennium brought new games and computerised toys to the world, pet robots that can learn and Lego Mindstorm to allow children to begin programming and build robots.

AI continues to grow and who knows what new technology will be introduced in the near future.All that is certain is that we have not seen the last of new developments within AI.