A Brief History of Modern Artificial Intelligence

The term Artificial Intelligence was first coined at a conference at Dartmouth College in 1956. The main premise behind this conference was the idea that "every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it". This idea meant that intelligence and data could be quantified  and be made into something that can utilize all of the information. It was around this time that the first A.I. program Logic Theorist was first created by Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, and Cliff Shaw. This moment is widely considered the birth of artificial intelligence.

The subsequent years were considered the golden years of advancements in A.I. From 1956-1974 programs were created that were able to solve complex math problems in algebra and geometry, while other programs were capable of learning languages. Many scientists at this time believed that the rapid growth within the field would continue and that they would inevitably be able to create a fully intelligent and self aware machine soon. However this proved to not be the case, 1974-1980 are considered the first major lull in A.I. research, dubbed "the Winter of AI".

During the Winter of AI the expectations scientists had set forth for themselves during the golden years proved to be too much. The optimism of that period quickly turned into disappointment, and the field suffered heavily from lack of interest and lack of funding. There proved to be too much logistical and technological problems that couldn't be solved at the time.

Artificial Intelligence did not return to the forefront of scientific research again until 1997 when IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer defeated chess champion, Garry Kasparov. In 2011 Apple released an intelligent personal assistant program or "knowledge navigator" program known as Siri. Later in 2014 Microsoft released their own version known as Cortana. As of now it is the status quo for all major smart phones to have some sort or AI assistant. In 2014 the chatbot, Eugene Goostman passed the Turing Test sparking debate of whether the Turing test, a test to see if a machine can exhibit intelligence that is indistinguishable from that of a human,n is truly a good measure of artificial intelligence.