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.

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