AI's Path to the Singularity

Duplicating human intelligence in a machine has proceeded in fits and starts over the last 70 or so years. But suddenly it’s gaining momentum at a dizzying pace, and the action promises to intensify as machines continue to improve themselves without the help of humans.

Here’s some of what’s happened along the way and some of what appears likely as the next chapters unfold.

1950 TURING TEST

Alan Turing devises a test to gauge whether a machine can think like a human.

1952 VOICE RESPONSE

Bell Laboratories develops a computer that responds to spoken numbers.

1956 AI GETS A NAME

Delegates to the Dartmouth Conference use the term “artificial intelligence” for the first time.

1958 LEARNING ALGORITHM

Computers take a step closer to consciousness of their own existence.

1962 VOICE RECOGNITION

The first computer to understand speech has a 16-word vocabulary.

1966 FIRST CHATBOT

Some users mistakenly think the ELIZA bot is intelligent because it mimics a psychiatrist.

1974-1980 FIRST AI WINTER

Government funding for artificialintelligence research dwindles.

1981 VIDEO GAME WINNER

A bot called “Rog-O-Matic” sometimes beats humans at Rogue.

1987-1993 SECOND AI WINTER

Funding diminishes because AI isn’t adding to the bottom line.

1980s KEYBOARDS DOMINATE

Keyboards push punchcards aside as the way to program.

1988 MORAVEC’S PARADOX

Computers complete tests like adults but lack even a baby’s perception.

1994 “CHATTERBOT” COINED

The term for programs that converse is later shortened to “chatbot.”

1997 CHESS CHAMPION

The Deep Blue supercomputer beats world chess champ Gary Kasparov.

1999 FATEFUL PREDICTION

Ray Kurzweil predicts computers will pass the Turing test by 2029.

1999 SINGULARITY SURVEY

Eighty percent of scientists polled say humans will lose control of technology.

2000 VOICE AND FACE

Sylvie, the first “verbot,” is a standalone virtual human interface.

2005 SINGULARITY PREDICTED

Ray Kurzweil embraces AI but says the singularity will arrive in 2045.

2010 SIGNIFICANT COMPANY

DeepMind, a neural network that learns to play video games, is established in the U.K.

2011 NEW JEOPARDY CHAMP

Watson, an IBM computer, beats the best humans on the TV quiz show.

2013 PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Watson begins helping to make decisions in cancer research.

2014 KEY ACQUISITION

Google purchases DeepMind, the neural network that plays video games.

2015 MOMENTOUS STARTUP

Sam Altman launches OpenAI with investments from Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, et al

2016 CONQUERING “GO”

DeepMind’s AlphaGo, defeats champion Lee Sedol at the complex ancient game.

2016 CHATBOT AMUCK

Users teach Microsoft’s Tay to spew racism, sexism and authoritarianism.

2017 THE “T” IN GPT

The transformer is described for the first time in a scientific paper.

2018 GPT-1 INTRODUCED

OpenAI offers a chatbot that responds to questions with human-like texts.

2018 CHATTER IN ASIA

Xiaoice, a series of chatbots in Indonesia, attracts 500 million users.

2019 SEEKING A PROFIT

Formerly not-for-profit OpenAI starts a for-profit enterprise.

2019 SELF-LEARNER

OpenAI releases GPT-2, which learns without supervision and has 1.5 billion parameters.

2020 PARAMETERS RISING

Microsoft introduces a chatbot named for Alan Turing with 17 billion parameters.

2020 PICTURE PERFECT

Dall-E from OpenAI generates images without human instruction.

2022 STILL MORE PARAMETERS

OpenAI introduces GPT-3, upping computing capacity 100-fold.

2022 AI GOES MAINSTREAM

ChatGPT, a chatbot based on GPT-3, commands people’s attention.

2023 USEFUL IMAGES

Developers can integrate OpenAI’s Dall-E 2 into other programs. Microsoft uses it in Bing and Edge.

2023 UNFORTUNATE LAUNCH

Google announces its Bard chatbot, but it fails in its first public demonstration.

2023 THE BINGULARITY

ChatGPT appears aside Microsoft’s search engine and Bing re-enters our vocabulary.

2023 SEARCH WARS BEGIN

China-based Baidu “fully integrates” chatbot into all of its systems.

2023 THE NEXT BIG THING

OpenAI is expected to release GPT-4 with 100 trillion parameters.

2023 A REVENUE MODEL

OpenAI to begin charging a monthly fee for ChatGPT Plus, an enhanced version.

2023 ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Google expects to launch Sparrow, a sophisticated rival to ChatGPT.

2029 GRADUATION DAY

Kurzweil revises prediction: Computers are likely to reach par with humans 16 years earlier.

2045 THE SINGULARITY

Super intelligent machines may free themselves from human masters, Kurzwell predicts.