To Understand The Future of AI, Study Its Past

Dr. Claude Shannon, one of the pioneers of the field of artificial intelligence, with an electronic ... [ ] mouse designed to navigate its way around a maze after only one'training' run. A schism lies at the heart of the field of artificial intelligence. Since its inception, the field has been defined by an intellectual tug-of-war between two opposing philosophies: connectionism and symbolism. These two camps have deeply divergent visions as to how to "solve" intelligence, with differing research agendas and sometimes bitter relations. Today, connectionism dominates the world of AI. The emergence of deep learning, which is a quintessentially connectionist technique, has driven the worldwide explosion in AI activity and funding over the past decade.