Introducing artificial intelligence and machine learning

Can machines think? This is what English polymath and wartime codebreaker Alan Turing asked himself in his seminal 1950 paper that would lay the groundwork for AI. Although Turing does not use the term "artificial intelligence" (it would be introduced as a research discipline only six years later), he was convinced that machines would eventually compete with human beings in all purely intellectual fields.

Using technology devices to extend and partially replace human intellect was not a new quest. Back in the 17th century, French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal invented the Pascaline (Figure 4.1), a fully working mechanical computer that could do addition and subtraction of numbers entered by rotating its dials.

Figure 4.1: Pascal's arithmetic machine, a.k.a. the Pascaline. From the top left, clockwise: an original device built in 1652; a view of the underlying system of gears; the detailed...