Dr. Alok Aggarwal
6 min read . 14 June 2023

Genesis of Artificial Intelligence and a Scientific Revolution:
1950-1979

Table of Contents

The Birth of AI: A Scientific Revolution (1950-1979)

“The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error…” Later, HAL 9000 continued, “This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error. The 9000 series has a perfect operational record.”
Space Odyssey HAL 9000

“This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error”
The computer, HAL 9000, as shown in the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey

AI in the movie ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

In 1968, Stanley Kubrick produced the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke called, The Sentinel. The main antagonist in this movie was an artificially intelligent computer, HAL 9000 exhibiting creativity, a sense of humor, emotions, and the ability to scheme against anyone who threatened its survival. This movie was made during an era when there was enormous excitement and hype because many pioneering researchers believed that such a computer would exist by the year 2000. In fact, one of them, Marvin Minsky, even served as an adviser for this film and one of the film’s characters, Victor Kaminski, was probably named in his honor.

Hype, Progress, and Lessons Learned

The first electronic computers were developed after World War II. However, it was a question proposed by Alan Turing that seemed to truly spark the field of AI. The second chapter discusses the genesis of AI and the scientific revolution that ensued soon thereafter. It also discusses how this scientific revolution unleashed a hype-cycle among trailblazing scientists, who made audacious predictions that eventually led to a bust and an AI winter. The lessons learned from this scientific revolution should not be overlooked especially because almost all subdomains of AI were created during this boom and their successes formed the archetypes for Machine Learning algorithms and Deep Learning Networks that are currently prevalent. Although this excitement and hype led to enormous progress in AI, its shortcomings also indicate the dangers of overenthusiasm and overinvestment, which seem to be recurring today. In particular, this chapter discusses the following:

  1. Section 2.1 – The “Imitation Game” proposed by Turing in October 1950.
  2. Section 2.2 – McCarthy coined the term “Artificial Intelligence” in 1955 and a boom phase followed.
  3. Section 2.3 – Emergence of Machine Learning algorithms that created a scientific revolution.
  4. Section 2.4 – Single and Multi Layer Perceptrons that are the basis for Shallow and Deep Learning today.
  5. Section 2.5 – Various subfields of AI that were born during this era and are widespread today.
  6. Section 2.6 — Two commercial applications discussed in this era.
  7. Section 2.7 – The main reasons for the collapse of this hype cycle.
  8. Section 2.8 — Concludes with a brief discussion regarding this scientific revolution and its repercussions.

The book titled “The Fourth Industrial Revolution and 100 Years of AI (1950-2050) will be published in December 2023. For details, see www.scryai.com/book

Blog Written by

Dr. Alok Aggarwal

CEO, Chief Data Scientist at Scry AI
Author of the book The Fourth Industrial Revolution
and 100 Years of AI (1950-2050)

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