#4 - A Brief History of AI

Geoff Allen runs through the history of AI as a field. It all started with a small conference in 1956, where the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ was coined. By comparing trends in the history of AI, we can learn about changing conceptions of intelligence and cognition.

How has our conception of intelligence changed over time? There have been at least three broad trends, fashionable at different times – (i) Computationalism, (ii) Connectionism, and (iii) the Situated Embodied Dynamical (SED) approach.

Is the mind best understood – (i) as a computer, (ii) as a network, or (iii) in a physical context? Perhaps each of these theories can teach us something about modelling human intelligence and about engineering new intelligence.

Topics also include: human-perception versus bee-perception; the fuzzy line between iPhones and brains; and a big confession on the ethics of artificial intelligence.

A bibliography for each episode is available here: https://geoffallenwriting.wordpress.com/2020/10/06/extrapolator-bibliography/

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