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
