{"id":2314,"date":"2010-08-20T19:29:09","date_gmt":"2010-08-20T19:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=2314"},"modified":"2025-06-07T12:04:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T12:04:22","slug":"soon-to-celebrate-ais-first-millenium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/soon-to-celebrate-ais-first-millenium\/","title":{"rendered":"AI&#039;s first millenium:  prepare to celebrate"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p>A search algorithm is a computational procedure (an algorithm) for finding a particular object or objects in a larger collection of objects. Typically, these algorithms search for objects with desired properties whose identities are otherwise not yet known.&nbsp;&nbsp; Search algorithms (and search generally) has been an integral part of artificial intelligence and computer science this last half-century, since the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alanturing.net\/turing_archive\/pages\/Reference%20Articles\/what_is_AI\/What%20is%20AI04.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">first working AI program<\/a>, designed to play checkers, was written in 1951-2 by Christopher Strachey. At each round, that program evaluated the alternative board positions that resulted from potential next moves, thereby searching for the &#8220;best&#8221; next move for that round.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p>The first search algorithm in modern times apparently dates from 1895:&nbsp; a depth-first search algorithm to solve a maze, due to amateur French mathematician <a href=\"http:\/\/www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk\/Biographies\/Tarry.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gaston Tarry<\/a> (1843-1913).&nbsp; Now, in a recent paper by logician <a href=\"http:\/\/wilfridhodges.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wilfrid Hodges<\/a>, the date for the first search algorithm has been pushed back much further: to the third decade of the second millenium, the 1020s, a thousand years ago. Hodges translates and analyzes a logic text of Persian Islamic philosopher and mathematician, Ibn Sina (aka Avicenna, c. 980 &#8211; 1037) on methods for finding a proof of a syllogistic claim when some premises of the syllogism are missing. <\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p>Representation of domain knowledge using formal logic and automated reasoning over these logical representations (ie, logic programming) has become a key way in which intelligence is inserted into modern machines; searching for proofs of claims (&#8220;potential theorems&#8221;) is how such intelligent machines determine what they know or can deduce. It is nice to think that automated theorem-proving is almost 990 years old.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong><em>References:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p>B. Jack Copeland [2000]:&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alanturing.net\/turing_archive\/pages\/Reference%20Articles\/what_is_AI\/What%20is%20AI04.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">What is Artificial Intelligence<\/a>?<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p>Wilfrid Hodges [2010]: Ibn Sina on analysis: 1. Proof search. or: abstract state machines as a tool for history of logic.&nbsp; pp. 354-404, in: A. Blass, N. Dershowitz and W. Reisig (Editors):&nbsp; <em>Fields of Logic and Computation<\/em>. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 6300.&nbsp; Berlin, Germany:&nbsp; Springer.&nbsp;&nbsp; A version of the paper is available from Hodges&#8217; website, <a href=\"http:\/\/wilfridhodges.co.uk\/arabic05.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p>Gaston Tarry [1895]: La problem des labyrinths. <em>Nouvelles Annales de Math\u00e9matiques<\/em>, <strong>14<\/strong>: 187-190.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A search algorithm is a computational procedure (an algorithm) for finding a particular object or objects in a larger collection of objects. Typically, these algorithms search for objects with desired properties whose identities are otherwise not yet known.&nbsp;&nbsp; Search algorithms (and search generally) has been an integral part of artificial intelligence and computer science this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,13,35,45,50,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai","category-computer-science","category-history","category-logic","category-mathematics","category-matherati","p1","y2010","m08","d20","h19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2314"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13973,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314\/revisions\/13973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}