I am currently enrolled in a program at MIT on Artificial Intelligence and its implications for companies. The contents of this program have been the precursors of today’s post and my need to go to the past, in order to understand the present of AI.
Artificial Intelligence is a fascinating field that has captured the human imagination for decades. The idea of creating machines that can think and act like us has inspired scientists, philosophers, and science fiction writers alike. But how did we get to where we are today?
In this post, I wanted to analyze and reflect on this history and its time frame, from its humble beginnings to the most recent developments.
What is artificial intelligence?
There are many definitions of AI.
Some of them are very complex, such as those of MIT professor Patrick Winston , who sadly deceased in 2019.
Architectures that deploy methods enabled by constraints exposed by representations that support models of thinking, perception and action
AI is a new digital species, but in reality, it is us, all of us....
A very interesting reflection, don’t you think?
But let’s get to the story…
The pioneers and the Turing test
In 1950, mathematician Alan Turing, considered one of the fathers of theoretical computer science, published a paper entitled “Computing Machinery, and Intelligence”. Turing introduced the idea of the “Turing test, a test to determine whether a machine can exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of a human. The Turing test remains an influential benchmark in the field of AI to this day.
The initial concepts of neural networks and machine learning began to take shape in this decade.
In 1956, the Dartmouth Conference marked the official birth of AI as a field of study.
The first wave of AI: Representation and Problem Solving
The 1960s saw a boom in AI research, known as the “first wave of AI”. Researchers of this era focused on developing techniques for machines to represent and solve problems. A notable example was the work of John McCarthy, who coined the term “artificial intelligence” in 1955, and headed the MIT AI Lab, where major advances in the field were made….
Marvin Minsky and the quest for artificial intelligence
Marvin Minsky, another AI pioneer, co-founded the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1959 and was a central figure in AI research for decades. Minsky believed that AI could be achieved by creating machines that could learn and adapt as humans do. His work influenced numerous areas of AI, including machine learning, neural networks, and robotics.
The second wave of AI: Expert Systems and Rules
The“second wave of AI” began in the 1970s and was characterized by the development of expert systems. These systems use rules and expert knowledge to solve problems in specific domains, such as medical diagnosis or computer configuration. A notable example was the MYCIN, developed by Edward Shortliffe, which could diagnose infectious blood diseases with a level of accuracy comparable to that of human physicians.
From 197y to 1980, AI suffered a period of stagnation known as the first“AI winter”, due to a lack of concrete results and a decrease in funding.
The second AI winter occurred later, between 1987 and 1993, for the same reasons as the previous one: its high costs and lack of tangible results.
The advent of machine learning and generative artificial intelligence
At the end of the 20th century, AI research was driven by the development of more powerful machine learning algorithms . These algorithms allowed machines to learn from large amounts of data without the need to be explicitly programmed. Machine learning has had a profound impact on a wide range of applications, from facial recognition to financial analysis.
Although the fundamentals of neural networks and machine learning were established in the early decades of AI history, it was really in the 2010s that these technologies began to significantly influence society and multiple industries, ushering in what many consider the “golden age” of deep learning (deep learning) and modern artificial intelligence
In recent years, we have witnessed the emergence of “generative artificial intelligence,” a field that uses machine learning techniques to create new content, such as images, text or music. Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize industries such as fashion, entertainment, and design.
Impact and future of AI
The impact of AI on our lives continues to grow, influencing everything from how we interact with devices to how we generate all kinds of content to how businesses operate and make strategic decisions.
AI now helps in scientific research, it could help in policy development (with the level of our rulers, I doubt it and in case they use it they will do it with spurious objectives, no doubt ), also in education and much more, proposing solutions to complex problems at a speed and accuracy that defy human capabilities until they get to surpass it as I have already discussed in previous posts related to the upcoming Artificial General Intelligence or AGI.
The future ahead of us is undoubtedly exciting.
Have a good week!
