AI in Motion
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Artificial IntelligenceBeginner1:25 video6 chapters

A Short History of AI — lecture notes

From Alan Turing to ChatGPT in one animated timeline — the breakthroughs, the “AI winters” and the ideas that changed everything.

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0:001. Introduction

Introduction — A Short History of AI

Artificial intelligence is older than most people think. Let us travel through seventy years of ideas, hype, disappointment and breakthroughs.

0:092. The early years

The early years — A Short History of AI

In 1950 Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. In 1956 the Dartmouth workshop gave the field its name. Rosenblatt built the perceptron in 1958, and ELIZA chatted with people in 1966. But promises outran results, and funding dried up in the first AI winter.

0:283. Expert systems to Deep Blue

Expert systems to Deep Blue — A Short History of AI

The 1980s brought expert systems, rule-based programs used by businesses. Backpropagation was popularised in 1986, but another winter followed. In 1997 IBM’s Deep Blue beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

0:424. Deep learning era

Deep learning era — A Short History of AI

In 2012 a deep neural network called AlexNet crushed an image recognition contest, starting the deep learning era. AlphaGo beat a Go champion in 2016. The Transformer arrived in 2017, powering the large language models behind ChatGPT, released in 2022.

0:595. Why now?

Why now? — A Short History of AI

Why did progress speed up? Four ingredients arrived together. Massive data from the internet. Fast graphics processors. Better training ideas. And an open research culture that shared code and results.

1:126. Recap

Recap — A Short History of AI

The story in four beats. The question and the name in the fifties. Expert systems in the eighties. Deep learning from 2012. And transformers and generative AI since 2017.

Key takeaways

  • The term “artificial intelligence” dates from the 1956 Dartmouth workshop.
  • Periods of hype were followed by “AI winters” when results disappointed.
  • Deep learning took off around 2012 thanks to data, GPUs and better algorithms.
  • The 2017 Transformer architecture underpins today’s large language models.

Check yourself

  1. Which event is usually seen as the start of the deep learning era?
    Show answer

    AlexNet winning ImageNet in 2012 — AlexNet’s 2012 ImageNet win showed deep neural networks could beat other methods by a wide margin.

  2. What was an “AI winter”?
    Show answer

    A period of reduced funding and interest after hype — AI winters followed periods where promises exceeded results.

  3. Which 2017 architecture powers modern language models?
    Show answer

    The Transformer — The Transformer, introduced in 2017, is the basis of today’s LLMs.

Go deeper

© 2026 Janin A Apurba, CSE, AUST · Advanced ICT Officer, CNRS-UNHCR. All rights reserved. Notes for the animated lecture at https://ai-in-motion.vercel.app/watch/history-of-ai.html