“Doomsday is upon us” is a phrase being thrown around this week after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned, saying the company’s mission and its competitor’s “could kill us all by the end of the decade.” But how did we get here, and more importantly, why?
The concept of artificial intelligence (AI) was first introduced in the 1950s, when computer scientist Alan Turing published his paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence. In it, he challenged the question, “Can machines think?” which instead raised the question, “Can machines imitate humans?”
For Turing, AI was all about the results, never the means the machine used to get them.
When writing about concerns people might have regarding AI, such as its lack of consciousness, Turing asks how we know there is emotion in what anyone else does but ourselves. For example, we are only aware of other people’s intelligence because they say smart things. If a machine can imitate those ideas, why should it be excluded?
“According to the most extreme form of this view, the only way by which one could be sure that a machine thinks is to be the machine and to feel oneself thinking. One could then describe these feelings to the world, but of course no one would be justified in taking any notice. Likewise, according to this view, the only way to know that a man thinks is to be that particular man,” Turing said.
After Turing’s paper, the Dartmouth Summer Research Project took place, often called the birth of Artificial Intelligence. At the workshop, ten researchers came together to lay the groundwork for advancing the idea of machines imitating humans and to establish a hypothesis for the future of AI. “The study is to proceed on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.”
The next major AI advancement occurred in 1966, when MIT scientist Joseph Weizenbaum created the first chatbot, ELIZA. ELIZA acted as a therapist by responding to users’ emotional troubles with simple patterns. If a user expressed that they were sad, the chatbot would respond, “Why are you sad?” However, Weizenbaum grew weary of ELIZA as people began developing a deep emotional connection to the chatbot. In his book Computer Power and Human Reason, he discussed how shocking the connection was, especially compared with the system’s simplicity.
“What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.” After ELIZA, Weizenbaum shifted to criticizing AI and its advocates. He claimed that AI would not need to eliminate society; all it would need to do is dehumanize it.
Following these breakthroughs, AI advancements halted in the 1970-80s, largely due to limited computing power and a lack of algorithms. One of the first signs of this stalemate came during the Cold War, when programs couldn’t translate Russian documents any more efficiently or accurately than a human. The Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee released a report that would end U.S. support for these language models. “The biggest argument that the respondents had with the translations presently available to them was not with their quality but with time lags in their issuance,” it stated.
AI’s first major breakthrough after the 1984 pause came with the backpropagation algorithm. This algorithm, still used for training AI models today, is how AI learns from its mistakes. The system works backward: when an AI makes a mistake, it traces back through the network to figure out why and adjusts the corresponding connections to improve accuracy. Instead of testing every possible response individually, the system outputs a response, identifies an error, and then works backward to determine what adjustments its network needs.
In 1997, a new question arose—Could AI beat the most skilled chess player in a match? For the first time in history, leading technological innovator IBM used its Deep Blue supercomputer to challenge the six-time reigning chess champion Garry Kasparov to a match. In the famous match held in New York City, Deep Blue won narrowly, 3.5–2.5, proving AI can outsmart even the most skilled humans.
“For the first time in the history of mankind, I saw something similar to an artificial intellect ”
Garry KasparovChess grandmaster and World Chess Champion
That brings us to today, when AI developments are anything but decelerating, as this technology is set to receive $2.52 trillion in federal funds in 2026.
However, limitations are being introduced. A recent agreement among AI executives at leading companies was passed to slow down advancements. But as far as the future goes, the next steps for AI are beginning to slip through the hands of humans and into the algorithms of computers. Hopefully, though, when “Doomsday” comes out in December, it will be released as a sci-fi film, not a documentary.