AI's Summer of 1956

"The premise was both simple and audacious. Every aspect of learning or intelligence, they suggested, could be described precisely enough that a machine could be built to simulate it. The summer of 1956 was meant to be an experiment in thinking about thinking, and in many ways, it became the symbolic birth of artificial intelligence and, subsequently, large language models."

"Machines, they suggested, could one day use language, form abstractions, solve problems once thought exclusive to humans, and even improve themselves. Here's the list, which remains relevant even today. How computers might use language. How machines could form abstractions and concepts. The study of neuron nets. The theory of the size of a calculation (efficiency and complexity). The idea of self-improvement. The classification of abstractions. The role of randomness in creativity."

John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon drafted a 1955 proposal to convene researchers at Dartmouth College, coining the phrase "artificial intelligence." The proposal asserted that every aspect of learning or intelligence could be described precisely enough for machines to simulate. The 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence aimed to explore language use, abstraction, neuron nets, computational complexity, self-improvement, classification of abstractions, and randomness in creativity. The Rockefeller Foundation was asked for funding; the summer budget totaled $13,500 to cover salaries, travel, housing, and secretarial support, a modest sum compared with current investments.

Read at Psychology Today