A Brief History
From its humble beginnings as a scientific curiosity to the powerful technology we now know today, AI has survived several seasons of scarcity and abundance, doubt and optimism, and fluctuating levels of government support before embarking on a path toward exponential growth. To understand where we stand currently and the future trajectory of AI, we first need to look back at the fragmented chronology of its evolution and decades-long development.
While the roots of artificial intelligence can be linked loosely to the period of classical philosophers who attempted to describe human thinking as a symbolic system (which was the original focus of AI research), the modern field of study and the terminology both emerged in the middle of the 20th Century. In 1956, the term artificial intelligence was introduced and formally established as a special field of research at a summer workshop held at Dartmouth College.
The idea of designing intelligent machines had fascinated...
