The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma

The formal study of AI began in the 20th century, with significant developments emerging in the mid-twentieth century. In 1950, British mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing proposed the famous Turing Test, a benchmark for assessing a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from that of a human. Turing’s groundbreaking work laid the foundation for the field of AI research and ignited interest in creating machines capable of human-like cognition.

During the 1950s and 1960s, AI pioneers such as Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Herbert Simon, and Allen Newell laid the groundwork for early AI systems. McCarthy, often referred to as the “father of AI,” coined the term “artificial intelligence” and organized the famous Dartmouth Conference in 1956, which is widely regarded as the birth of AI as a field of study. The conference brought together leading researchers to discuss the potential of creating intelligent machines.

One of the earliest AI programs was the Logic Theorist, developed by Newell and Simon in 1956. The Logic Theorist was capable of proving mathematical theorems and demonstrated the potential for machines to perform tasks traditionally associated with human intelligence. Around the same time, McCarthy introduced the concept of LISP (List Processing), a programming language specifically designed for AI research, which remains influential in the field to this day.