Mythical, fictional, and speculative precursors
Myth and legend
In Greek mythology, Talos was a giant constructed of bronze who acted as guardian for the … See more

In the 1970s, AI was subject to critiques and financial setbacks. AI researchers had failed to appreciate the difficulty of the problems they faced. … See more

The business community's fascination with AI rose and fell in the 1980s in the classic pattern of an economic bubble. As dozens of companies failed, the perception was that the technology was not viable. However, the field continued to make advances despite … See more

The earliest research into thinking machines was inspired by a confluence of ideas that became prevalent in the late 1930s, 1940s, and … See more

The programs developed in the years after the Dartmouth Workshop were, to most people, simply "astonishing": computers were solving … See more

In the 1980s, a form of AI program called "expert systems" was adopted by corporations around the world and knowledge became the focus of mainstream AI research. In those same years, the Japanese government aggressively … See more

The field of AI, now more than a half a century old, finally achieved some of its oldest goals. It began to be used successfully throughout the technology industry, although … See more