Here is the history of AI during 20th century:

Year Milestone / Innovation

1923

Karel Čapek’s play named “Rossum’s Universal Robots” (RUR) opens in London, first use of the word “robot” in English.

1943

Foundations for neural networks laid.

1945

Isaac Asimov, a Columbia University alumni, coined the term Robotics.

1950

Alan Turing introduced Turing Test for evaluation of intelligence and published Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Claude Shannon published Detailed Analysis of Chess Playing as a search.

1956

John McCarthy coined the term Artificial Intelligence. Demonstration of the first running AI program at Carnegie Mellon University.

1958

John McCarthy invents LISP programming language for AI.

1964

Danny Bobrow’s dissertation at MIT showed that computers can understand natural language well enough to solve algebra word problems correctly.

1965

Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT built ELIZA, an interactive problem that carries on a dialogue in English.

1969

Scientists at Stanford Research Institute Developed Shakey, a robot, equipped with locomotion, perception, and problem solving.

1973

The Assembly Robotics group at Edinburgh University built Freddy, the Famous Scottish Robot, capable of using vision to locate and assemble models.

1979

The first computer-controlled autonomous vehicle, Stanford Cart, was built.

1985

Harold Cohen created and demonstrated the drawing program, Aaron.

1990

Major advances in all areas of AI:

  • Significant demonstrations in machine learning
  • Case-based reasoning
  • Multi-agent planning
  • Scheduling
  • Data mining, Web Crawler
  • natural language understanding and translation
  • Vision, Virtual Reality
  • Games

1997

The Deep Blue Chess Program beats the then world chess champion, Garry Kasparov.

2000

Interactive robot pets become commercially available. MIT displays Kismet, a robot with a face that expresses emotions. The robot Nomad explores remote regions of Antarctica and locates meteorites.