When did it all began.

Hello I'm doing a report for scool about artificial intelligence, and
I would like to know: when did it all begin, and furthermore - some
of the most groundbraking inventions over the years. In a short
version. Prefebley names and dates along with inventions.

-- Morten Bender Adamsen, August 29, 2000

Answers

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-- Lei Yang, September 10, 2000

Early in the 17th century, René Descartes proposed that bodies of animals are nothing more than complex machines. Blaise Pascal created the first mechanical digital calculating machine in 1642. In the 19th century, Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace worked on programmable mechanical calculating machines.

Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead published Principia Mathematica, which revolutionized formal logic. Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts published "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" in 1943 laying foundations for neural networks.

The 1950s were a period of active efforts in AI. The first working AI programs were written in 1951 to run on the Ferranti Mark I machine of the University of Manchester (UK): a draughts-playing program written by Christopher Strachey and a chess-playing program written by Dietrich Prinz. John McCarthy coined the term "artificial intelligence" in the first conference devoted to the subject, in 1956. He also invented the Lisp programming language. Alan Turing introduced the "Turing test" as a way of operationalizing a test of intelligent behavior. Joseph Weizenbaum built ELIZA, a chatterbot implementing Rogerian psychotherapy.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Joel Moses demonstrated the power of symbolic reasoning for integration problems in the Macsyma program, the first successful knowledge-based program in mathematics. Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert publish Perceptrons, demonstrating limits of simple neural nets and Alain Colmerauer developed the Prolog computer language. Ted Shortliffe demonstrated the power of rule-based systems for knowledge representation and inference in medical diagnosis and therapy in what is sometimes called the first expert system. Hans Moravec developed the first computer-controlled vehicle to autonomously negotiate cluttered obstacle courses.

In the 1980s, neural networks became widely used with the backpropagation algorithm, first described by Paul John Werbos in 1974. The 1990s marked major achievements in many areas of AI and demonstrations of various applications. Most notably Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer, beat Garry Kasparov in a famous six-game match in 1997. DARPA stated that the costs saved by implementing AI methods for scheduling units in the first Gulf War have repaid the US government's entire investment in AI research since the 1950s

-- KS Madhavan, March 6, 2006

Ancient AI History

Greek myths of Hephaestus and Pygmalion incorporate the idea of intelligent robots. Many other myths in antiquity involve human-like artifacts. Many mechanical toys and models were actually constructed, e.g., by Hero, Daedalus and other real persons. Aristotle invented syllogistic logic, the first formal deductive reasoning system. Talking heads were said to have been created, Roger Bacon and Albert the Great reputedly among the owners. Ramon Llull, Spanish theologian, invented machines for discovering nonmathematical truths through combinatories. Invention of printing using moveable type and the Gutenberg Bible was printed in 1456. Clocks, the first modern measuring machines, were first produced using lathes. Clockmakers extended their craft to creating mechanical animals and other novelties. Rabbi Loew of Prague is said to have invented the Golem, a clay man brought to life (1580).

-- KS Madhavan, March 8, 2006