1950 - Turing Test: Alan Turing proposed the Turing Test in his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," providing a criterion to evaluate a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of a human.
1956 - Dartmouth Conference*: This conference, organized by John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon, is considered the official birth of artificial intelligence as a separate field of study. It's where the term "artificial intelligence" was first coined.
Late 1950s - Early AI Programs: The development of early AI programs like the Logic Theorist by Newell and Simon in 1956 and the General Problem Solver (GPS) in 1957, marked significant progress in the field.
1966 - ELIZA: Joseph Weizenbaum created ELIZA, an early natural language processing computer program, which demonstrated the superficiality of communication between humans and machines but was a big step in the development of conversational agents.
1980s - Machine Learning Takes Off: The shift towards machine learning, with the development of algorithms that could learn from and make predictions on data, was a major step forward. This era also saw the rise of neural networks.
1997 - Deep Blue Beats Kasparov: IBM's Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, showcasing the potential of AI in mastering complex games that require strategic thinking.
2006 - Renaissance of Neural Networks: The term "deep learning" was introduced, leading to a resurgence of interest in neural network research, driven by increased computing power and large amounts of data.
2012 - AlexNet and Deep Learning: The success of AlexNet, a deep convolutional neural network, in the ImageNet competition significantly advanced the field of computer vision and deep learning.
2016 - AlphaGo Beats Lee Sedol: Google DeepMind's AlphaGo defeated world champion Lee Sedol in the game of Go, a feat that was previously thought to be at least a decade away due to the game's complexity.
2020s - Generative AI and Large Language Models: The advent and widespread use of large language models like GPT-3 and generative AI tools have significantly impacted various industries and daily life, demonstrating the practical applications of AI.
These milestones highlight the evolution of AI from theoretical concepts to practical applications, showcasing the rapid advancements and expanding capabilities of AI systems.
University of South Florida Libraries. (11, March, 2024). What is AI? Background. https://guides.lib.usf.edu/c.php?g=1315087&p=9701461