Artificial Intelligence

By lendz

  • First Working Program-Controlled Computer

    Konrad Zuse built the first working program-controlled computers.

  • Artificial Neural Networks

    Warren Sturgis McCulloch and Walter Pitts publish "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" (1943), laying foundations for artificial neural networks.

  • "Cybernetics"

    Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener and Julian Bigelow coin the term "cybernetics". Wiener's popular book by that name published in 1948.

  • Theory of Games

    Game theory which would prove invaluable in the progress of AI was introduced with the 1944 paper, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern.

  • First sign of AI/Robotics

    Vannevar Bush published As We May Think (The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945) a prescient vision of the future in which computers assist humans in many activities.

  • Talking Computers?

    John von Neumann (quoted by E.T. Jaynes) in response to a comment at a lecture that it was impossible for a machine to think: "You insist that there is something a machine cannot do. If you will tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that!". Von Neumann was presumably alluding to the Church-Turing thesis which states that any effective procedure can be simulated by a (generalized) computer.

  • "Turning Test"

    Allan Turning comes up with the idea of the "Turning Test" to measure the intelligence of a machine.

  • Three Laws of Robotics

    Isaac Asimov published his Three Laws of Robotics

  • Dartmouth College summer AI conference

    The first Dartmouth College summer AI conference was organized

  • Solomonoff

    Throughout the 60's Solomonoff Layed the foundations of a mathematical theory of AI, introducing universal Bayesian methods for inductive inference and prediction.

  • ELIZA

    Joseph Weizenbaum (MIT) built ELIZA, an interactive program that carries on a dialogue in English language on any topic. It was a popular toy at AI centers on the ARPANET when a version that "simulated" the dialogue of a psychotherapist was programmed.

  • SCHOLAR

    Jaime Carbonell (Sr.) developed SCHOLAR, an interactive program for computer assisted instruction based on semantic nets as the representation of knowledge.

  • NOAH

    Earl Sacerdoti developed techniques of partial-order planning in his NOAH system, replacing the previous paradigm of search among state space descriptions. NOAH was applied at SRI International to interactively diagnose and repair electromechanical systems.

  • AAAI

    First National Conference of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) held at Stanfor

  • AARON

    The autonomous drawing program, AARON, created by Harold Cohen, is demonstrated at the AAAI National Conference (based on more than a decade of work, and with subsequent work showing major developments).

  • The 1990's

    Major advances in all areas of AI, with significant demonstrations in machine learning, intelligent tutoring, case-based reasoning, multi-agent planning, scheduling, uncertain reasoning, data mining, natural language understanding and translation, vision, virtual reality, games, and other topics.

  • ALVINN

    Semi-autonomous ALVINN steered a car coast-to-coast under computer control for all but about 50 of the 2850 miles. Throttle and brakes, however, were controlled by a human driver.

  • Robopets

    Interactive robopets ("smart toys") become commercially available, realizing the vision of the 18th century novelty toy makers.

  • Honda's ASIMO

    Honda's ASIMO robot, an artificially intelligent humanoid robot, is able to walk as fast as a human, delivering trays to customers in restaurant settings.