The Evolution of AI

AI’s influence on technology is due in part because of how it impacts computing. Through AI, computers have the ability to harness massive amounts of data and use their learned intelligence to make optimal decisions and discoveries in fractions of the time that it would take humans.

AI has come a long way since 1951, when the first documented success of an AI computer program was written by Christopher Strachey, whose checkers program completed a whole game on the Ferranti Mark I computer at the University of Manchester.

Since then, AI has been used to help sequence RNA for vaccines and model human speech, technologies that rely on model- and algorithm-based machine learning and increasingly focus on perception, reasoning and generalization. With innovations like these, AI has re-taken canter stage like never before — and it won’t cede the spotlight anytime soon.

In actuality, early in the 20th century, the foundation for AI was laid. Even though the greatest advancements weren't achieved until the 1950s, early specialists in numerous fields were essential to making these advancements possible. Understanding AI's past is crucial to comprehending its current state and potential future directions.