09-17-2019PREMIUM

Seventy years of highs and lows in the history of machine learning

From the birth of the phrase “artificial intelligence” to the eve of quantum supremacy.

[Source images: Jolygon/iStock; Svetlana Orusova/iStock]

1950

The Imitation Game
Alan Turing introduces the Turing Test, which challenges a machine’s ability to display intelligent behavior indistinguish-able from a human’s.

1956

The beginning of AI
The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence popularizes the term.

1963

Cold War concerns
U.S. government agencies like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) fund AI research at universities such as MIT, hoping for machines that will translate Russian instantly.

1968

“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
2001: A Space Odyssey is released, featuring the autonomous and lethal AI, HAL 9000.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Lidsky is deputy editor of Fast Company. He’s responsible for helping to steer its overall editorial direction, with an emphasis on finding, commissioning, and editing long-form narrative feature stories that appear in print and online More

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