The 10 most important breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence

"Artificial Intelligence" is currently the hottest buzzword in tech. And with good reason - after decades of research and development, the last few years have seen a number of techniques that have previously been the preserve of science fiction slowly transform into science fact. Already AI techniques are a deep part of our lives: AI determines our search results, translates our voices into meaningful instructions for computers and can even help sort our cucumbers (more on that later). In the next few years we'll be using AI to drive our cars, answer our customer service enquiries and, well, countless other things. But how did we get here?