In 1950, Alan Turing argued that there was no convincing reason to doubt that computers could be intelligent. Then, in the late 1950s, Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Herbert Simon, and Allen Newell started the work that led everyone to think of them as the founders of the field of Artificial Intelligence. Marvin Minsky, the last of the founders, died on January 24, 2016.
Minsky championed the idea that computers would someday think like we think and surpass us. He had no patience with those who doubted that computers could be intelligent at a human level or beyond. In the early days, there were many doubters, and were it not for Minsky’s determined advocacy, the field of AI might have foundered...