The History and Future of Neural Networks - The AI Journal

In January 2020, the BBC listed developments in the application of neural networks, ranging from facial recognition to language translation. Whilst these applications have surfaced in the twenty-first century, the technology underpinning Machine Learning has taken decades of research with plenty of highs and lows along the way. This article outlines the long journey from early logic gates, through "AI winters" to the deep neural networks that are being developed today. The first artificial neural network was proposed back in 1943 by Warren McCulloch, a Neurophysiologist, and Walter Pitts, a Mathematician, as a result of their research into applying Mathematics, in the form of Boolean logic, to model how neurons within the brain work. By deploying logic gates, they were able to demonstrate how outputs could be activated when specified inputs are active, to model how neurons work in the brain.