AI Isn’t As New As You Think. When people talk about Artificial… | by Pankaj Badoni | Jul, 2025

AI began with big ideas. In 1950, British scientist Alan Turing asked, “Can machines think?” He created the Turing Test to check if a machine could act like a human in conversation. Early programs could solve logic problems using basic rules.

In 1956, the term “Artificial Intelligence” was born. These early AI systems used if-then rules to solve problems. One well-known program, SHRDLU, could move virtual blocks and understand simple English.

AI systems started working in specific fields. Programs like MYCIN helped doctors choose treatments. These “expert systems” were based on lots of if-then rules written by real experts.

Progress slowed. AI couldn’t meet the high hopes people had. It was hard to scale and expensive to maintain. Many projects lost funding, and this period became known as the AI Winter.

AI made a comeback with machine learning, where computers learned patterns from data. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue beat the world chess champion. AI was back — and it was getting smarter.