The intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in gaming in recent years has encountered a transformation in the world of entertainment – from player experiences, game development to redefining interactive entertainment.
Earlier in gaming, AI used to be an essential but minute ingredient that helped in laying the foundation for interactive entertainment. We highlight some of the individuals who have been associated with the introduction and evolution of AI.
Who Coined The Term “Artificial Intelligence”?
It was in the mid-1950s where John McCarthy, who was one of the greatest innovators in the field of Computer Science, was the one who coined the term “Artificial Intelligence”. He defined it as the “science and engineering of making intelligent machines”.
Credit: Microsoft Copilot
Key Figures In AI
John McCarthy
John McCarthy was one of the prominent computer scientists and cognitive scientists who presented his definition of “Artificial Intelligence” on the campus of Dartmouth College, at a conference in the summer of 1956. This marked the beginning of AI research, which also included the attendees of the conference.
McCarthy is the creator of Lisp, which is a programming language used in robotics and in Internet-based services such as credit card fraud detection and airline scheduling. Lisp was often used by hackers as a way to coax IBM machines when playing chess. It made this system crucial in McCarthy’s other contribution: the concept of utility computing — a service provisioning model that offers resources such as hardware, software and network bandwidth to clients on an on-demand basis.
He went on to found an AI laboratory in Stanford University where he produced papers on robot consciousness and free will, and also worked on ways that programs mimic human common sense decision-making more effectively.
Alan Turing
Turing was an English mathematician, computer scientist and theoretical biologist who was influential in the development of theoretical computer science.
His machine, called the Turing machine, provided the concepts of algorithms and computations which led to the innovation of general-purpose computers. He too was present at the Dartmouth Conference of 1956 and also is considered a founder of AI. His works however, were not fully acknowledged because of the confidentiality his works had with the Official Secrets Act, and the widespread homophobia of that era. The intensity of the discrimination led to his prosecution and suicide in 1954.
The Turing Award, which is named after him, is the highest distinction in computer science. It is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community.
Arthur Samuel
Arthur Lee Samuel was an American computer scientist who was a pioneer in computer gaming and artificial intelligence. He popularized the term “machine learning” in the year 1959.
He devised the Samuel Checkers-playing Program, which is among the world’s most successful self-learning programs developed on the first IBM computer, the IBM 701 during his time at IBM in Poughkeepsie. He retired from IBM to be a professor at Stanford University, where he continued to write software. He worked on the project TeX (a typesetting system for complex mathematical formulae) which was developed by Donald Knuth, who was also a professor at Stanford University.
He was awarded the Computer Pioneer Award by the IEEE Computer Society in 1987. The award is presented to outstanding individuals whose main contribution to the concepts and development of the computer field was made fifteen years earlier.
Marvin Minsky
Marvin Minsky was a cognitive scientist and computer scientist, and a member of the Dartmouth Conference. Minsky collaborated with McCarthy to co-found the MIT AI laboratory in 1959. He produced valuable research on artificial neural networks and artificial intelligence. He won the Turing Award in 1969.
Allen Newell
Allen Newell was also a contributor at the Dartmouth Conference. His contributions included the Information Processing Language in 1956, and two of the earliest AI programs Logic Theory Machine and General Problem Solver. Newell developed these with his colleague Herbert S. Simon, and then they went on to win the Turing Award in 1975.
Thankfully there have been advancements made decades later in machine learning that have found their way into esports through player modeling techniques to help create exclusive and unique experiences to humans when they play them.
Esports has helped create jobs for lots of people. Interested in knowing about the business side of esports? Listen to the Gamers Change Lives Podcast! We get experienced guests from all around the world featuring.
Written By Jeffrey Osei-Agyeman
