Artificial Intelligence Time Line
Source: Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines
- 1943: Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts show the relationship
between boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT) and human neurons.
- 1946: ENIAC, the first electronic computer, is developed by
John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchley.
- 1947: Transistor invented by William Bradford Shockley,
Walter Hauser Brattain, and John Bardeen.
- 1950: In "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (Mind) Alan
Turing proposes the Turing Test as a means of determining whether a
machine is intelligent.
- 1956: The Logic Theorist program, by Alan Newell and Herbert
Simon, and J. C. Shaw, uses recursive search to prove mathematical
theorems and solve mathematical problems.
- 1956: The term "Artificial Intelligence" is coined
at a Dartmouth conference.
- 1956: General Problem Solver, by Newell, Simon, Shaw, uses
recursive search to solve general problems.
- 1958: Integrated Circuits created by Texas Instruments.
- 1958: LISP developed by John McCarthy
- 1959: Arthur Samuel develops a machine learning program that
learns to play checkers as well as some of the best human players.
- 1962: Frank Rosenblatt defines the perceptron, a
type of single-layer neural network.
- 1976: Kurzweil introduces the Kurzweil Reading Machine,
the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind.
- 1979: The MYCIN (Expert System) program performs as well as
doctors and medical specialists at diagnosing bacterial blood
infections.
- 1980s: Expert Systems are used trade stocks and to
manage stock, bond and currency markets.
- 1987: Computer speech recognition systems are capable of
performing large vocabulary recognition for a single speaker.
- 1990: EKGs are routinely interpreted by computer.
- 1995: RALPH Drives Across America
- 1996: A Computer Proves an Important Mathematical Theorem
- 1997: Deep Blue Beats Kasparov
- 1997: Dragon System introduces Naturally Speaking, the
first continuous speech dictation product.
- 1997: Neural implant therapy is approved in Europe for treating
Parkinson's disease patients. (See
an article on this research).
- 1998: The first continuous speech recognition program
capable of understanding natural language commands is introduced.
- 1998: Routine business transactions, such as airline reservations,
are conducted via a verbal dialog between a human customer and an
automated agent.
- Advanced Investment Technologies use neural networks and
genetic algorithms to make investment decisions.
- 1998: Microvision's Virtual Retinal Display (VRD) projects
images directly onto the user's retinas.
- Cochlear implants are now routine. Experimental retinal implants
have been developed at Harvard Medical School.
- 1998: Synaptics has developed a vision chip that is essentially a
copy of the human retina. It employs an algorithm that models the
early stages of mammalian visual processing.
- 1999: Scientists at CIT have built digital-analog
integrated circuits that model groups of 100s of animal
neurons.
- 1999: Today's MRI scanners are capable of viewing individual cell
bodies. The next generation will be capable of viewing individual
nerve fibers. (See the NIH's visible
human web site).
- 1999: JANUS, Speech-to-speech translation of spontaneous dialogues in a variety of languages
- 2000: Kismet, A Sociable Computer
- 2005: Wakamaru, elderly companion robot
- 2011: IBM Watson, question answering