In 1955, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, Claude Shannon, and John McCarthy proposed a summer workshop on AI. Later, during the summer of 1956, the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence was held. It is the beginning of AI as a field.

Founding fathers of AI. Courtesy of Medium

The project took around six to eight weeks to complete and was simply an extended brainstorming session. Eleven mathematicians and scientists participated; nevertheless, more than ten additional came for brief periods.

The workshop is to generate fresh ideas and make significant progress on the AI challenge.

Birthplace of AI

Dartmouth Hall Commemorative Plaque. Photo: James moor

In the early 1950s, the field of "thinking machines" went by numerous names: cybernetics, automata theory, and sophisticated information processing. The diversity of names reflects the intellectual perspectives.

In 1955, John McCarthy, a young Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Dartmouth College, sought to form a group to explain and improve concepts relating to thinking machines. He coined the term 'Artificial Intelligence' to describe the emerging field. He picked the name partly to escape a restricted automata theory concentration and to avoid cybernetics, which was primarily focused on analog feedback and avoid having to accept or argue with the aggressive Norbert Wiener as the guru.

McCarthy addressed the Rockefeller Foundation in early 1955 to request financing for a summer seminar at Dartmouth with perhaps ten attendees. In June, he and Claude Shannon, a co-founder of information theory working at Bell Labs, met with Robert Morison, Director of Biological and Medical Research, to discuss the idea and potential funding. However, Morison was doubtful whether such a visionary project would receive funding.

McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon formally proposed the proposal on September 2, 1955. Hence, it is the term 'artificial intelligence.'

What is the proposal?

The goal is to make machines use language, develop abstractions and concepts, solve problems usually reserved for people, and improve. We believe that a small group of scientists working together for the summer can make significant progress on one or more of these issues.

Some facets of the AI problem are as follows:

1. Automatic Computers

2. How Can a Computer be Programmed to Use a Language

3. Neuron Nets

4. Theory of the Size of a Calculation

5. Self-improvement

6. Abstractions

7. Randomness and Creativity

Computers, natural language processing, neural networks, theory of computing, abstraction, and creativity are discussed further in the proposal (these areas within the field of AI are still relevant to the work of the field).

Conclusion

The director of AI@50, professor of philosophy James Moor, says that the researchers who came to Hanover 50 years ago were thinking about making robots more aware and sought to lay out a framework to understand human intelligence better.

Moreover, the researchers demonstrated that any part of the learning or other aspect of intelligence is precisely enough for a machine to imitate it. It is to figure out how to get robots to speak, develop abstractions and concepts, solve problems currently reserved for humans, and improve themselves.

Image source: Unsplash