Module 1: Foundations of AI: History of AI and Evolution of Data Science

Question 1

When and where was AI born as a distinct field?

Answer 1

1956 during a conference at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

Question 2

What were the significant outcomes from the Dartmouth Conference?

Answer 2

• Creation of the first AI Program (Logic Theorist)
• Adoption of the term “Artificial Intelligence”
• Development of the LISP programming language

Question 3

When was the first “AI Summer”?

Answer 3

Mid-1950s to mid-1970s. Key milestones were:

• First AI programming language, LISP (John McCarthy)
• ELIZA: developed at MIT; example of early natural language processing

Question 4

When was the first “AI Winter”?

Answer 4

Mid-1970s to mid 1980s. Marked by AI skepticism and funding cuts.

Question 5

When was the second “AI Summer”?

Answer 5

Mid 1980s to late 1980s. Boosted by the Japanese government’s Fifth Generation Computer Systems project, which was aimed at developing AI-powered computers.

Question 6

When was the second “AI Winter”?

Answer 6

Late 1980s to late 1990s. High costs and the end of the Cold War marked a decline.

Question 7

What time period is considered the “Renaissance and the Era of Big Data”?

Answer 7

Late 1990s to present. Highlights include:

• IBM’s Deep Blue defeated the world chess champion in 1997.
• The emergence of the internet led to a data explosion, marking the beginning of the “big data” era.
• A wealth of data, along with advancements in computational power and machine learning, led to significant improvements in AI capabilities (e.g., recommendation algorithms for shopping, voice assistants in smartphones.)

Question 8

What time period is considered the “AI Boom”?

Answer 8

2011 - Present. Fueled by advances in deep learning. Milestones:

• The victory of Google’s AlphaGo over the Go world champion in 2016
• OpenAI’s GPT showcasing language models’ capabilities

Question 9

What was the first AI programming language?

Answer 9

LISP

Question 10

What is one of the earliest examples of Natural Language Processing?

Answer 10

ELIZA - it simulated a Rogerian psychotherapist by rephrasing a patient’s statements as questions and posing them to the patient.

Question 11

What is the definition of data science?

Answer 11

The science of dealing with data, once they have been established, while the relation of the data to what they represent is delegated to other fields and sciences.

Question 12

What was the “Foundations” time period for data science?

Answer 12

1960s to 1980s

Question 13

When was the “Age of Databases”?

Answer 13

1980s to 1990s

Question 14

Name two transformational developments which altered the ways businesses dealt with data.

Answer 14

1) Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS)
2) Structured Query Language (SQL)

Question 15

When was the “Advent of the Internet”?

Answer 15

1990s to 2000s

Question 16

What does “Big Data” refer to?

Answer 16

The exponential growth of data.

Question 17

What is the definition of ”Data Mining”?

Answer 17

The process of discovering patterns in large data sets.

Question 18

When was the “Rise of Data Science”?

Answer 18

2000s to 2010s

Question 19

What is Hadoop?

Answer 19

An open-source software for storing data and running applications on clusters of commodity hardware which provided a significant boost to data storage and processing capabilities.

Question 20

Describe “Current Trends” in Data Science.

Answer 20

From the 2010s to the present, there has been an explosion of machine-generated data, including IoT and social media data, which has also led to the growth of real-time analytics and a need for advanced data processing techniques.

Question 21

Name the modern drivers of AI and Data Science.

Answer 21

• Cloud Computing
• Mobile Technology and Social Media
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs)
• Blockchain
• Computer Vision, AR/VR and the Metaverse

Question 22

What is the definition of Robotics?

Answer 22

A multidisciplinary field that encompasses the design, construction, operation and programming of robots. Robotics allow AI systems and software to interact with the physical world.

Question 23

What is Machine Perception?

Answer 23

Systems are trained to process sensory information and mimic human senses.

Question 24

What is Robotic Process Automation?

Answer 24

An evolving technology using robots to automate repetitive and rule-based tasks in business processes.