TIMELINE
HISTORY OF AI
Think AI’s a new thing? Think again, as we look to the history books
1763
1913
1950
BAYES
MARKOV
TURING
Yes, 1763. George Grenville takes office as the British prime minister. Haydn composes his Symphony No 13. And Thomas Bayes writes An Essay Towards Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances, which would underpin Bayes’ Theorem. The maths behind AI is born.
Andrey Markov describes his technique for stochastic modelling, sequencing event probability based on previous known events. The mathematician’s explanation will lead to Markov chains, which are central to modelling real-world processes in statistical form.
Alan Turing puts forward his idea for a ‘learning machine’ that could become artificially intelligent. The Turing test, or imitation game, proposed how a machine might be able to evaluate data like a human. Turing’s 1950 paper opens with the words: “I propose to consider the question ‘Can machines think?’”
14
April 2021
