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Artificial intelligence (AI) is the use of “computers and machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind,” according to IBM.
The idea of AI goes back at least 2,700 years. As Adrienne Mayor, research scholar, folklorist, and science historian at Stanford University, explained: “Our ability to imagine artificial intelligence goes back to the ancient times. Long before technological advances made self-moving devices possible, ideas about creating artificial life and robots were explored in ancient myths.”
Mayor noted that the myths about Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention and blacksmithing, included precursors to AI. For example, Hephaestus created the giant bronze man, Talos, which had a mysterious life force from the gods called ichor. Hephaestus also created Pandora and her infamous box, as well as a set of automated servants made of gold that were given the knowledge of the gods. Mayor concluded, “Not one of those myths has a good ending once the artificial beings are sent to Earth. It’s almost as if the myths say that it’s great to have these artificial things up in heaven used by the gods. But once they interact with humans, we get chaos and destruction.”
The modern version of AI largely began when Alan Turing, who contributed to breaking the Nazi’s Enigma code during World War II, created the Turing test to determine if a computer is capable of “thinking.” The value and legitimacy of the test have long been the subject of debate.
The “Father of Artificial Intelligence,” John McCarthy, coined the term “artificial intelligence” when he, with Marvin Minsky and Claude Shannon, proposed a 1956 summer workshop on the topic at Dartmouth College. McCarthy defined artificial intelligence as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.” He later created the computer programming language LISP (which is still used in AI), hosted computer chess games against human Russian opponents, and developed the first computer with ”hand-eye” capability, all important building blocks for AI.
The first AI program designed to mimic how humans solve problems, Logic Theorist, was created by Allen Newell, J.C. Shaw, and Herbert Simon in 1955-1956. The program was designed to solve problems from Principia Mathematica (1910-13) written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell.
In 1958, Frank Rosenblatt invented the Perceptron, which he claimed was “the first machine which is capable of having an original idea.” Though the machine was hounded by skeptics, it was later praised as the “foundations for all of this artificial intelligence.”
As computers became cheaper in the 1960s and 70s, AI programs such as Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA flourished, and US government agencies including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began to fund AI-related research. But computers were still too weak to manage the language tasks researchers asked of them. Another influx of funding in the 1980s and early 90s furthered the research, including the invention of expert systems by Edward Feigenbaum and Joshua Lederberg. But progress again waned with a drop in government funding.
In 1997, Gary Kasparov, reigning world chess champion and grand master, was defeated by IBM’s Deep Blue AI computer program, a huge step for AI researchers. More recently, advances in computer storage limits and speeds have opened new avenues for AI research and implementation, such as aiding in scientific research and forging new paths in medicine for patient diagnosis, robotic surgery, and drug development.
Now, artificial intelligence is used for a variety of everyday implementations including facial recognition software, online shopping algorithms, search engines, digital assistants like Siri and Alexa, translation services, automated safety functions on cars (and the promised self-driving cars of the future), cybersecurity, airport body scanning security, poker playing strategy, and fighting disinformation on social media, among others.
Pro
- Artificial intelligence can improve workplace safety.
- AI can offer accessibility for people with disabilities.
- AI can make everyday life more convenient and enjoyable, improving our health and standard of living.
Con
- Artificial intelligence poses dangerous privacy risks.
- AI repeats and exacerbates human racism.
- AI will harm the standard of living for many people by causing mass unemployment as robots replace people.
This article was published on January 21, 2022, at Britannica’s ProCon.org, a nonpartisan issue-information source.