The Intelligence Age: A History of AI

From ancient automata to modern neural networks — the story of thinking machines

75 Milestones
700+ Years of history
∞ Growing daily
John McCarthy

Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

John McCarthy

Pioneering work in AI

  • Coined the term 'Artificial Intelligence' in 1956.
  • Developed the Lisp programming language.
  • Contributed to the development of time-sharing computer systems.

John McCarthy was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist who made foundational contributions to the field of artificial intelligence.

Milestones

  • The Summer That Named a Revolution
    The Dawn of AI Research
    The Summer That Named a Revolution

    A small workshop at Dartmouth College coined the term 'artificial intelligence' and launched an entire field of research.

    1956
  • The Language That Gave AI Its Voice
    The Dawn of AI Engineering
    The Language That Gave AI Its Voice

    John McCarthy invented LISP, a radical programming language built on pure mathematics that became the lingua franca of artificial intelligence research for three decades.

    1960
  • 1973
    The First AI Winter Policy
    The Report That Froze a Field

    A devastating government review by mathematician James Lighthill declared most AI research a failure, triggering funding cuts that plunged the field into its first winter.

    1973
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