Exploring AI Foundations: Understanding today's AI in historical context: History of AI until 2017

Audience exposure level: Open to all

Understanding where AI came from is the best way to understand what it is. This 90-minute deep dive traces the history of artificial intelligence from the mechanical mind of the early 20th century through the symbolic AI of the 1950s–70s, the AI winters, the rise of connectionism, and the deep learning revolution of 2012–2017. The lecture situates current AI within a longer intellectual history of how humans have thought about minds, machines, and intelligence.

Objectives

• The mechanical mind: Turing, cybernetics, and early conceptions of machine intelligence
• Symbolic AI, the first spring, and the AI winters
• Connectionism, neural networks, and the deep learning revolution (2012–2017)
• Recurring patterns of enthusiasm, disillusionment, and revival
• How history helps us understand the present moment in AI

Event materials will be published on Canvas following the session