AI for Social Good

1A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence

“Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.”

– Diane Ackerman

“The science of today is the technology of tomorrow”

– Edward Teller

IN 1997, IBM's Deep Blue computer famously defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game match. This event marked a major milestone in the development of AI, as it demonstrated that a machine could outthink a human in a complex game with countless possible moves. The jubilation felt on achieving such a feat was mixed with hand-wringing that the age of machines was about to eclipse the age of humankind. Kasparov himself could not believe a machine could have defeated him and insisted this was a modern version of the Mechanical Turk, a 19th century con where a small person hid inside a supposed automaton and played chess.^1,2 Despite these expressions of disbelief, the match captured the world's attention. Chess was, after all, an ancient game highly revered as an expression of human mental ability. This event sparked a new interest in the abilities of machines that could think and adapt and even outshine humans.

Nearly seven decades since the prefix “artificial” was attached to intelligence, we live on the cusp of one of the largest disruptions in human society. When the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, calls AI one of humanity's most profound inventions,³ and other tech luminaries such as Bill ...