25 moments that have defined AI

# 1

1818: Literature

Mary Shelley publishes the novel Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus

# 2

1843: Mathematics

Ada Lovelace translates 'Sketch of the Analytical Engine' invented by Charles Babbage. In the notes to the translation she develops what is considered the first algorithm to make Babbage's engine compute a full Bernoulli sequence.

# 3

1913: Mathematics

Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead publish Principia Mathematica, the landmark work on formal logic and reasoning.

# 4

1923: Philosophy

Karel Capek’s play R.U.R introduces the term ‘robot’

# 5

1945 + 1950: Mathematics

Alan Turing works at Bletchley Park to automate the decoding process of encryption used by Germans.

In 1950, Alan Turing presents the lecture Intelligent Machinery, A Heretic Theory on the potential problems of automating rational processes. Alan Turing publishes Computing Machinery and Intelligence and introduces the Turing Test.

# 6

1950s: Computer science

John McCarthy develops the LISP language for the IBM 704 computer. And in 1960 the IBM 700-7000 series are manufactured, key systems in computer science and early AI programming.

# 7

1956: Early success in AI

Claude Shannon develops Theseus, the maze-solving cybernetic mouse. In 1948 and 1958, Claude Shannon presents a paper on information theory.

In 1956, The Dartmouth Conference, organised by John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky and Claude Shannon among other scientists, catalyses the birth of Artificial Intelligence as a discipline.

# 10

1961: Developments in robotics

Unimate, the first industrial robot is introduced at General Motors.

# 11

1966: Developments in robotics

Shakey, the first general purpose robot is demonstrated at the Standford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Carrying out research on Shakey, Helen Chan Wolf produces groundbreaking findings on cartography and image recognition, pioneering facial recognition detection.

# 13

1971: Neural Networks

Nolan Busnell and Ted Dabney create Computer Space, the first arcade game to use AI.

# 14
1981: Culture and Society

13% of UK households own a home computer. By 2017 this figure rises dramatically to 88%.

In 1981, IBM releases the first PC operating system.

# 16

1989s: Neural networks

English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. The launch of the world wide web significantly increases the amount of data available for machine-learning research.

# 17

1990: Neural networks

Rodney Brooks publishes paper Elephants Don’t Play Chess’ and becomes director of the MIT AI LAB. Brooks reinvigorates research in neutral networks.

First successful testing of speaker recognition at Stanford Research Institute.

# 18

1999: Culture and society

The Wachowskis direct The Matrix, a film featuring the power struggle between sentiment machines and humanity.

# 19

1999: Developments in robotics

Aibo, the first commercially available robot pet dog is marketed by Sony.

# 20

2000: Neural networks

Cynthia Breazeal develops Kismet, a program and robot capable of recognising human emotion through facial analysis.

# 21

2010: Developments in robotics

Hiroshi Ishiguro and Intelligent Robots Lab presents the Geminoid android.

# 22

2015: Culture and society

The Future of Life Institute publishes the open letter ‘Research Priorities for Robust and beneficial Artificial Intelligence’ signed by 8000 people including Steve Wozniak, Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk.

The Future of Life Institute publishes the open letter ‘Autonomous Weapons: An Open Letter from AI and Robotics Researchers’, endorsed by almost 4000 AI and robotics researchers.

# 23

2015: Developments in robotics

ERIKA, the android news anchor, is presented by Hiroshi Ishiguro and the Intelligent Robots Lab at Osaka University.

# 24

2016: Neural networks

Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo program defeats champion Lee Sedol at the game go Go.

# 25

2018: Neural networks

The European Union establishes ELLIS, the European Lab for Learning and Intelligent Systems.

Alibaba's language processing AI outscores a human at the Stanford University reading and comprehension test.