Robot Soul

Dennis Jerz took note of the fact that I didn't reference Rossum's Universal Robots as precursors to AI. I admit that my decision to declare the time of publication of Alan Turing's Imitation Game idea to be a cutoff point, and concentrate on the period from 1950 to the present as the focus of this blog, is somewhat arbitrary. But were I to compile a list of AI precursors, I couldn't even hope to compete with Jorn Barger's Timeline of knowledge-representation, so I didn't even try. No, my way of adding value is to take that list and connect some dots that are there but are not connected yet.

So if you need to catch up on the real origins of AI, just read Barger's list. It starts with the year 13,700,000,000 BC. I can't beat that. The entry for Karel Capek's R.U.R. is minimal, however; Dennis Jerz has more information on the play, including a plot summary and photos of various historical productions.