Reclaiming Purpose

CHAPTER 2A Brief History of AI for the Layperson

The arrival of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022 felt less like a technological upgrade than a global lightning-strike event, and not long after student essays were uncannily improving, trustees were asking university presidents about their artificial intelligence (AI) strategies, and faculty were debating its use in their courses. It seemed like AI happened almost overnight. Indeed, technological revolutions often have a catalytic moment like that one, a point in time when multiple innovations come together in some new “change-the-world” combination. The release of Chat GPT 3.5 to the public likely will be remembered the same way historians characterize the 1829 test of The Rocket, the breakthrough steam locomotive that started the railway age and a transportation revolution. It too felt as though it appeared overnight, but in fact it united multiple decades-long technological advances in precision metalwork and machinery, boiler construction, wheel design, and more. To most of us, ChatGPT's arrival felt like waking up to hear an alien had landed on the planet. We did not see that one coming.

But in truth, AI has been around for decades. What we think of as AI is the combination of multiple innovations developed over time. That journey has not been a steady march of progress; it is a rocky, volatile tale dating to the 1950s and characterized by dizzying highs, catastrophic crashes, and breakthroughs fueled by brilliant ambition, ...