History and Emergence of Artificial Intelligence

The Beginning
How did Artificial Intelligence emerge? What are the series of events and discoveries lead to the term and study? What initially began as notions of thinking machines recorded in Greek myths such as Talos of Crete, the bronze robot of Hephaestus and Pygmalion’s Galatea became a potential prospect of reality due to the fast advances of technology based on electron flow manipulation.

Interactive Flash Timeline
The following is an embedded code giving a very comprehensive guide to the events that may have given birth to the subject and term. This timeline is from this website.

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Scrollable Timeline and Overview of Major Events
In addition to the major events outlined in the interactive flash timeline above, here is a visual timeline of some other events that have defined the technological development of AI.

Every major civilization built machines with human likeliness and hailed them as intelligent beings that are on par with humans.

In ancient history, Greek mythology has tails of Hephaestus incorporating the idea of artificial beings much like humans (Talos ). Yan Shi also imagined mechanical men for the King Mu of Zhou.

Click here to see AI's evolution in pop culture. These imaginings became highly possible after the invention of the programmable computer in the 1940's as presented on the timeline on the left.

In 1956, a Darmouth Conference brought together many notable future developers of AI named John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky , Allen Newell and Herbert Simon who coined the term Artificial Intelligence. From here on the U.S. Department of Defense was funded merrily until problems progressed further than solving word problems and logical theorems. Funding became cut and an "AI Winter " passed where no one was interested in Artificial Intelligence research during the time period.

Expert systems (1980) were created and AI once again became a commercial success with the potential to simulate and encompass the skills of human experts in certain fields. Lisp Machine was invented around 1956 and after another Ai Winter, another communication coding system called PROLOG was created.

From the 1990's and onwards, AI became very prominent in many fields that require data mining, diagnosis, fast calculations and even the internet search generations. Some notable achievements are listed on the timeline to the left such as beating chess champions and jeopardy winners.

Robot's are now capable of astounding tasks that are beyond the scope of human ability in any physical sense, they can drive 131 miles in the desert, lift heavy loads, coordinate their way through unfamiliar areas with sensors quickly, calculate predictions at incredibly fast rates, etc. AI is most prominent now in the market as it is being developed for image, face and voice recognition to make technology seem friendlier with major companies such as Google , [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc. Apple], and Facebook. It is only a matter of time before the singularity happens where a few notable algorithms of new technology may code for an emulated mind so complex we will accept it as equal to our own intelligence.

Click here if you want to see theoretical methods on how to Achieve AI.

Watch this robot named HRP-2 respond to emergencies, put out fires, drive a car, and open doors in the 2013 DARPA challenge.



Questions for Readers
1. Are there any particular events found on the visual or interactive timeline that has to be discussed further? Please comment below.

2. What other contributions have technology brought forth to the creation of modern AI which play a role in augmented reality and recognition?