Back to the Future of AI

I think I’m getting somewhere with this. I often find that before looking forwards at the future of something, artificial intelligence, for example, it’s often worth going backwards to the start of things. This is a draft of a visual looking at the history and influences of computing and AI.

It needs a sense check, contains errors and is somewhat western-centric, but then I am all of these things. It’s also very male-heavy, but then that was the world back then – and in AI and IT possibly still is. Perhaps I should do a visual showing women in AI – starting with women at Bletchley Park, NASA and so on. I may spin this off into a series of specific maps looking purely at robotics or software too.

History of Computing and AI – Richard Watson, April ’21

Coming next week….

Still a few errors to remove. The mood modelling idea came from my book Digital Vs. Human

Mood recognition machines are especially interesting in this context. On a prosaic level, an ability to read an individual’s mood could be used to test products or personalise advertising. But you could also use such technology to judge the mood of a group, a corporation, or even an entire nation. On the positive side, governments might use real-time mood monitoring to increase general happiness. On the negative side, they could be tempted to identify dissatisfaction or opposition in real-time. What if, for instance, digital cameras with mood-recognition software were used to identify towns where opposition politicians were popular — and targeted them for elimination?