The history of artificial intelligence (AI) began in antiquity, with myths, stories, and rumors of artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen. The study of logic and formal reasoning from antiquity to the present led directly to the invention of the programmable digital computer in the 1940s, a machine based on abstract mathematical reasoning. This device and the ideas behind it inspired scientists to begin discussing the possibility of building an electronic brain.
The field of AI research was founded at a workshop held on the campus of Dartmouth College in 1956. Attendees of the workshop became the leaders of AI research for decades. Many of them predicted that machines as intelligent as humans would exist within a generation. The U.S. government provided millions of dollars with the hope of making this vision come true.
