Artificial Intelligence Timeline

J. Weizenbaum creates the controversial DOCTOR program

IBM creates the Deep Blue chess supercomputer

IBM's Watson competes in Jeopardy!


1950

1960

A recent newspaper article reminds me that the Turing test may still be applicable today:

As yet, machines have not been able to pass the Turing test, although surprising results have been achieved. A well known example arose as a result of the program DOCTOR (a version of the more general system called ELIZA) developed by Joseph Weizenbaum in the mid 1960s ... Internally, all that DOCTOR did was restructure the statements made by the patient according to some well defined rules and direct them back to the [computer] screen. For example, in response to a statement such as I am tired today, DOCTOR might have replied with Why do you think you're tired today? If DOCTOR was unable to recognize the sentence structure, it merely responded with something like Go on or That's very interesting.
This is from J. Glenn Brookshear's book Computer Science an Overview (1997, Addison Wesley)

1970

1980

1990

The following information was found in Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2004:

In 1996, IBM challenged Garry Kasparov, the reigning world chess champion, to a chess match with a supercomputer called Deep Blue. The computer had the ability to compute 100 million chess positions per second. In a 1997 rematch Deep Blue defeated Kasparov, becoming the first computer to win a match against a reigning world chess champion with regulation time controls.

2000

2010

This is from IBM's website:

Jeopardy!
As a follow up to the chess-playing Deep Blue, IBM developed the Watson supercomputer in an effort to compete against humans in another game: Jeopardy! In February 2011, Watson appeared on the popular TV quiz show, and won the competition against two former Jeopardy! champions.
The webpage can be found at
www.03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/deepblue/impacts/

2020