Many histories of AI start with Homer and his description of how the crippled, blacksmith god Hephaestus fashioned for himself self-propelled tripods on wheels and "golden" assistants, "in appearance like living young women" who "from the immortal gods learned how to do things." I prefer to stay as close as possible to the notion of "artificial intelligence" in the sense of intelligent humans actually creating, not just imagining, tools, mechanisms, and concepts for assisting our cognitive processes or automating (and imitating) them. UNITED STATES - CIRCA 1943: Machine's Can't Think (Photo by Buyenlarge/Getty Images) In 1308, Catalan poet and theologian Ramon Llull completed Ars generalis ultima (The Ultimate General Art), further perfecting his method of using paper-based mechanical means to create new knowledge from combinations of concepts. Llull devised a system of thought that he wanted to impart to others to assist them in theological debates, among other intellectual pursuits. He wanted to create a universal language using a logical combination of terms.

It was the event that "initiated AI as a research discipline," which grew to encompass multiple approaches, from the symbolic AI of the 1950s and 1960s to the statistical analysis and machine learning of the 1970s and 1980s to today's deep learning, the statistical analysis of "big data." But the preoccupation with developing practical methods for making machines behave as if they were humans emerged already 7 centuries ago. By using this "Contrivance," "the most ignorant Person at a reasonable Charge, and with a little bodily Labour, may write Books in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Law, Mathematicks, and Theology, with the least Assistance from Genius or study." Bayesian inference will become a leading approach in machine learning. The boat was equipped with, as Tesla described it, "a borrowed mind."

Artificial intelligence and machine learning dominate so much conversation about cybersecurity that any CISO is faced with the necessity of explaining this family of technologies to the board. This is always challenging, especially with technologies so heavily hyped, and so liable to easy misunderstanding. As one panelist (Sriram Chandrasekar, Co-Head, AI Investments, Point72 Venture) put it, his role as a venture capitalist is to discern "the faint shimmer of snake oil" that so often rides atop presentations about artificial intelligence." The panel took up the task of framing AI in ways that would be accessible to boards, and that would give them a realistic sense of what AI is, does, and doesn't do. The panel was moderated by Dr. Reggie Brothers, Chertoff Group Principal and former senior science and technology executive at both the US Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. In addition to Chandrasekar, the panelists included Walid Ali (Senior Director, Artificial ...

By using this "Contrivance," "the most ignorant Person at a reasonable Charge, and with a little bodily Labour, may write Books in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Law, Mathematicks, and Theology, with the least Assistance from Genius or study." Bayesian inference will become a leading approach in machine learning. The boat was equipped with, as Tesla described, "a borrowed mind." The word "robot" comes from the word "robota" (work). It features a robot double of a peasant girl, Maria, which unleashes chaos in Berlin of 2026--it was the first robot depicted on film, inspiring the Art Deco look of C-3PO in Star Wars.