13-07-2025
AI's turbulent history, from the calculator to ChatGPT
On an internet forum, a slightly confused student asked a not-so-silly question: "Did the definition of AI [artificial intelligence] change?" Another replied, sounding disillusioned: "I just don't really regard this as an academic term [that I'd use] anymore (…) it may not be clear to a person reading it."
The use of the term "artificial intelligence" has indeed never been fully consistent. Experts generally agree on a preliminary definition: AI is a machine capable of carrying out tasks previously thought to require human intelligence. "But what is human intelligence?" asked Anne Laurent, a computer science researcher and director of the Inria branch at the University of Montpellier. "Philosophers, engineers and cognitive scientists do not agree. Its definition changes over time."
If we look at the broad history of AI, it may have been in the 19 th century that the first human intelligence skill fell, conquered by calculating machines capable of multiplying and dividing. But a narrower view often prevails, placing the birth of AI in the 1940s with the emergence of the computer.
1940s: The foundation
One of the very first electronic computers, the Colossus, was used by the British military to break the encrypted communications of the German high command. It was far more powerful than the electromechanical machines that came before it. The machines that followed would be easier to program and capable of running complex and varied algorithms, finally making it possible to experiment with theories about "thinking" machines, which began to circulate at the time. As early as 1943, Walter Pitts and Warren McCulloch imagined the concept of artificial neurons, a simplified model of how human neurons function.
