History and Evolution

History of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence may feel like a modern invention, but the idea has been around for many decades. Let’s take a journey through the important milestones in AI history, explained in simple words:

• The Idea Begins (Before Computers – Ancient to 1940s)
• People have always imagined intelligent machines.

In Greek mythology, there were stories of robots and artificial beings.

👉 In 1600

philosophers like René Descartes and Leibniz dreamed of machines that could think logically like humans.

👉 In 1950

The Birth of Modern AI (1950s) – Alan Turing, a British mathematician, asked:

“Can machines think?”

He introduced the famous Turing Test, a way to check if a machine can act like a human.

👉 In 1956

1956 – The Term “Artificial Intelligence” Was Born

At a conference at Dartmouth College, USA, John McCarthy coined the term “Artificial Intelligence.”

This is considered the official birth of AI as a field of study.

👉 In 2000

The Rise of Machine Learning (2000s) Computers became faster, and we got access to big data.

AI shifted to Machine Learning (ML) – letting machines learn from data.

Algorithms like Support Vector Machines and Decision Trees became popular.

👉 In 2010

Deep Learning and Modern AI (2010s–Today) AI made huge progress using Neural Networks, especially Deep Learning.

Key breakthroughs:

• 2012 – Image recognition improved dramatically with deep learning.
• 2016 – Google DeepMind’s AI AlphaGo beat the world champion in the game Go.
• 2020s – AI systems like ChatGPT, DALL·E, Midjourney, and self-driving cars became popular.

Future of AI (Beyond 2025) AI is now used in healthcare, finance, education, entertainment, robotics, space, and more.

Research continues on making General AI (human-level intelligence).

Topics like ethical AI, bias, and AI safety are becoming very important.