appendix A Tracing the roots: From mechanical calculators to digital dreams
To the average person, it might seem that AI is a recent field, given the increased public awareness of AI in recent years. However, the foundation of the concepts and theories that underpin this discipline can be traced back centuries. This chapter embarks on a voyage through time, retracing the footsteps of the pioneers who led us to AI as we know today. We will discover visionaries who dreamed of machines that could reason and learn: from Pascal’s ingenious mechanical design of the mechanical calculator that marked a pivotal moment in the history of human interaction with machines, Leibniz’s binary system that still serves as the representational basis for today’s digital computing, Babbage’s conception of the Analytical Engine as a mechanical brain, and Ada Lovelace’s insights into programming. Understanding these historical developments will shed light on where AI has been, where it stands today, and its potential future.