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British mathematician Alan Turing publishes a seminal paper introducing the "Turing Test" to evaluate machine intelligence, laying the conceptual foundation for AI by questioning if machines can think. -
Marvin Minsky and Dean Edmonds build SNARC, the world's first artificial neural network using 3,000 vacuum tubes to simulate 40 neurons, pioneering neural network concepts central to modern deep learning. -
John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon submit a proposal defining "artificial intelligence" as making machines behave intelligently, setting the stage for formal AI research. -
The Dartmouth Summer Research Project, organized by John McCarthy, marks the official founding of AI; attendees like Newell and Simon debut the Logic Theorist program, proving mathematical theorems. -
Arthur Samuel develops a checkers-playing program that improves through self-play, coining "machine learning" and demonstrating computers can learn from experience without explicit programming. -
Joseph Weizenbaum creates ELIZA, an early natural language processing program simulating a psychotherapist, highlighting AI's potential in human-computer conversation despite its simplicity. -
James Lighthill's critical report leads to slashed funding for AI research in the UK and US due to unmet expectations, ushering in the "AI Winter" of reduced progress and investment. -
Deep Blue becomes the first computer to beat a world chess champion in a full match, showcasing AI's prowess in strategic computation and sparking debates on machine vs. human intelligence. -
Watson defeats human champions on the quiz show Jeopardy!, advancing natural language understanding and question-answering systems that influence modern AI assistants like Siri. -
Alex Krizhevsky's AlexNet wins the ImageNet competition, dramatically improving image recognition via convolutional neural networks and igniting the deep learning boom with GPU acceleration.