Original Source: Lightspeed Magazine
“Even though we live in an era in which we rely so much on iPhones, laptops, and the internet just to get through the day, there’s something about the phrase “Artificial Intelligence” that still seems curiously like science fiction instead of science fact. But the truth is, A.I. has been a very real thing in the world for more than a century. A.I.s have made for skilled chess players, therapists, and the most curiously compelling week of Jeopardy! ever broadcast. Here are four highlights from the history of our future robot overlords.
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EL AJEDRECISTA: A Remarkable Automatic Device
In English, El Ajedrecista is “The Chess Player”—but, let’s be honest, “El Ajedrecista” sounds so much better. The machine astonished the world at the Paris World Fair of 1914 by using magnets and math to play an endgame of chess against a human opponent. The machine originally had mechanical arms to move the pieces, before the much less terrifying electromagnet solution was introduced.
El Ajedrecista may not have been the first time someone claimed to have invented a chess-playing automaton, but it was the first time that reality lived up to the hype; in 1769, Wolfgang von Kempelen’s “The Turk,” which made similar claims to El Ajedrecista, was later revealed as a hoax when a human player was discovered inside the machine. In contrast, El Ajedrecista was not only the first publicly displayed artificially-intelligent automaton, but it can also make a claim to being the world’s first computer game…”
Contributors: Open Source
Categories: Industry Articles, SIG U Resource
SRC Type: Artificial Intelligence, Disruptive Digitization