History of Artificial Intelligence(AI)

HISTORY OF AI

The origin of artificial intelligence lies in the earliest days of machine computations. During the 1940s and 1950s, AI begins to grow with the emergence of the modern computer. Among the first researchers to attempt to build intelligent programs were Newell and Simon. Their first well known program, logic theorist, was a program that proved statements using the accepted rules of logic and a problem solving program of their own design. By the late fifties, programs existed that could do a passable job of translating technical documents and it was seen as only a matter of extra databases and more computing power to apply the techniques to less formal, more ambiguous texts. Most problem solving work revolved around the work of Newell, Shaw and Simon, on the general problem solver (GPS). Unfortunately the  GPS did not fulfill its promise and did not because of some simple lack of computing capacity. In the 1970’s the most important concept of AI was developed known as Expert System which exhibits as a set rules the knowledge of an expert. The application area of expert system is very large. The 1980’s saw the development of neural networks as a method learning examples.

Prof. Peter Jackson (University of Edinburgh) classified the history of AI into three periods as:

1.     Classical

2.     Romantic

3.     Modern

1.     Classical Period:

It was started from 1950. In 1956, the concept of Artificial Intelligence came into existance. During this period, the main research work carried out includes game plying, theorem proving and concept of state space approach for solving a problem.

2.  Romantic Period:

It was started from the mid 1960 and continues until the mid 1970. During this period people were interested in making machine understand, that is usually mean the understanding of natural language. During this period the knowledge representation technique “semantic net” was developed.

3.  Modern Period:

It was started from 1970 and continues to the present day. This period was developed to solve more complex problems. This period includes the research on both theories and practical aspects of Artificial Intelligence. This period includes the birth of concepts like Expert system, Artificial Neurons, Pattern Recognition etc. The research of the various advanced concepts of Pattern Recognition and Neural Network are still going on.