====== Early Views of AI ====== //Published 29 December, 2014; last updated 12 January, 2021//

This is an incomplete list of early works we have found discussing AI or AI related problems.

===== List =====

1. Claude Shannon (1950), in Programming a Computer for Playing Chess, offers the following list of “possible developments in the immediate future,”

Machines for designing filters, equalizers, etc
Machines for designing relay and switching circuits
Machines which will handle routing of telephone calls based on the individual circumstances rather than by fixed patterns
Machines for performing symbolic (non-numerical) mathematical operations
Machines capable of translating from one language to another
Machines for making strategic decisions in simplified military operations
Machines capable of orchestrating a melody
Machines capable of logical deduction

2. The proposal for Dartmouth conference on AI offers the following “aspects of the artificial intelligence project”:

Automatic computers. This appears to be an application rather than an aspect of the problem; if you can describe how to do a task precisely, it can be automated.
How Can a Computer be Programmed to Use a Language
How can a set of (hypothetical) neurons be arranged so as to form concepts
Theory of the size of a calculation
Self-improvement
Abstractions. “A direct attempt to classify these and to describe machine methods of forming abstractions from sensory and other data would seem worthwhile.”
Randomness and creativity