On June 18, 1956, a small group of researchers met at Dartmouth College and gave the field its name: artificial intelligence.
The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, organized by John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Claude Shannon, and Nathaniel Rochester, is considered the starting point of AI as a field. The project ran through the summer of 1956 at Dartmouth College. It was partially funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Historians mark this event as the birth of AI research.
Key takeaways
- The project was organized by John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Claude Shannon, and Nathaniel Rochester.
- The Rockefeller Foundation covered about half of the funding.
- The workshop had a flexible schedule with attendees coming and going as they pleased.