Early pioneers

So how did practice and research into artificial intelligence emerge? The origins go back further than you might think.

Automata

Mechanical artefacts with moving parts have been engineered over the centuries. One famous example is the Silver Swan automaton built in the 18th century. The swan swerves and rotates to music and bends down to catch mechanical fish. It is on display in the UK’s Bowes Museum.

Vannevar Bush

Some of the theoretical groundwork for the studies of artificial intelligence was laid by the American scientist, Vannevar Bush. In 1945 he wrote an article for The Atlantic in which he described a mechanised store of information that could allow speedy and effortless retrieval:

Bush, V. (1945) ‘As We May Think’

The origins of the term ‘artificial intelligence’

Soon afterwards, Alan Turing investigated machine intelligence, following his codebreaking efforts in the second world war, which led to the birth of a new field of scientific study. The term ‘artificial intelligence’ was coined by computer scientist John McCarthy in 1955 and he presented his definition of the term as ‘the science and engineering of intelligent machines’ at a now-famous 1956 Dartmouth College conference (Schofield 2011).

Your task

Watch the video of Mark Elshaw from Coventry University at the beginning of this step, discussing how the concept of artificial intelligence has changed since the 1950s.

Post your thoughts in the comments area.

Further reading

_{Knapp, S. (2006, July 24). Artificial Intelligence: Past, Present and Future. Vox of Dartmouth: The Newspaper for the Dartmouth Faculty and Staff https://www.dartmouth.edu/~vox/0607/0724/ai50.html}

References

_{Bush, V. (1945). As We May Think. The Atlantic Monthly, 176(1). https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/}

_{Schofield, J. (2011). John McCarthy Obituary. Guardian Online https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/oct/25/john-mccarthy}