Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 318.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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        Date: 2025-01-14 08:24:36+00:00
        From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
        Subject: History of AI

[From:   thomas.haigh--- via Members <members@lists.sigcis.org>]


Hello SIGCIS,

CACM recently put up the online version of the fifth and final part in
my history of AI series, which has been appearing slowly over the past
year and a half. These add up to a very short history of AI from 1955 to
the present.

  1. Conjoined Twins: Artificial Intelligence and the Invention of
     Computer Science," /Communications of the ACM /66:6 (June,
     2023):33-37. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3593007
     <https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3593007>
  2. "There Was No 'First AI Winter'," /Communications of the ACM /66:12
     (December 2023):35-39. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3625833
     <https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3625833>
  3. "How the AI Boom Went Bust," /Communications of the ACM/ 67:2
     (February 2024):22-26. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3634901
     <https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3634901>
  4. "Between the Booms: AI in Winter," /Communications of the
     ACM/ 67:11 (November 2024):18-23.
     https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3688379
     <https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3688379>
  5. “Artificial Intelligence Then and Now,” /Communications of the ACM/
     68:2 (February 2025).
     https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/artificial-intelligence-then-and-now/
     <https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/artificial-intelligence-then-and-now/>

A somewhat less short (circa 50K words) version of this story will be
appearing as an MIT Press book with the working title Artificial
Intelligence: The History of a Brand. Other than more detail, context,
and human background a main difference is that each short chapter in the
book features a relatively detailed case study of a classic AI-branded
system. This is a short history of AI in all senses, focusing on the
brand itself and the relationship of AI to the development of computer
science as a discipline. Given the huge industry focused on writing
about modern AI the focus is almost exclusively on AI prior to the
recent boom, with a brief discussion of contemporary approaches there
primarily as a contrast.

In all formats, I’ve been making an effort to showcase a variety of
interesting work that’s been appearing on the topic from younger
scholars over the last few years.

In November I was at the IWM in Vienna as the Senior Digital Humanism
fellow. While in town I also agreed to teach a compressed graduate
course for the compute science students at the technical university,
using a draft of the book as the core text. You can see the syllabus at
https://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/TUW <https://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/TUW>

[...]

Best wishes,

Tom

Thomas Haigh
Professor & Chair, History Department, University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee
Chair, IEEE Computer Society History Committee
Director, ACM History Committee Turing Awards Project
See more at www.tomandmaria.com/Tom <http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom>


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