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FIGURE 2: The RCA radio-controlled car. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons).
Source: Discover Magazine.com.
small electrical motors that
controlled the car’s speed and
direction. It turned corners, sped up,
slowed down and honked its horn.
Because the people of New York
thought this was an act of magic,
many mistook the name Houdina,
Francis’ true birth name, for the
infamous magician Houdini who
thought his brand name was at risk;
legal battles ensued. Because there
was a crew that followed behind the
American Wonder in another
vehicle sending out radio impulses,
this cannot be classified
as autonomous, because there
was human intervention. However,
the American Wonder was an
inspiration that an autonomous
vehicle was not magical, but
a real possibility.8
Each and every decade that
followed the 1920s to the present
day promised that an autonomous
vehicle would soon be ready for
commercialization as automation
technology, AI, and machine
learning advanced. Each and every
decade, however, suffered the same
setbacks as today. When tested, the
vehicles, including the American
Wonder, often resulted in serious
vehicle to vehicle collisions, many
with fatalities. History does, indeed,
repeat itself. However, in March
2018, the first reported “pedestrian”
fatality occurred involving an Uber
self-driving car.
Other major AI benchmark
advancements throughout the
decades include the following: 9
• In 1914, Spanish engineer,
Leonardo Torres y Quevedo,
demonstrated the first chessplaying
machine, capable of
king and rook against king
endgames without any
human intervention.
• The 1920s marked when Czech
writer Karel apek introduced
the word "robot" in his play R.U.R.
(Rossum's Universal Robots)
and Makoto Nishimura designed
Gakutensoku, the first robot built
in Japan that was able to change
its facial expression and move
its head and hands by an air
pressure mechanism.
• A rush of important papers and
studies about machines that can
think characterized the 1940s
that inspired computer-based
neural networks from great minds,
such as Warren S. McCulloch,
Walter Pitts, Edmund Berkeley
and Donald Hebb.
• Of all the decades, it can be argued
that the 1950s represent an era
with the most AI advancements,
beginning in the early 50s with
Alan Turing and the Turing Test
(a standard still used today to
evaluate a computer or machine
that is indistinguishable from
human intelligence). The mid-50s
introduced the term “artificial
intelligence” for the first time
when IBM, Bell Labs, and various
universities collaborated in a study
workshop, while in the late 50s
Arthur Samuel introduced the
term “machine learning”
and John McCarthy developed
the Lisp programming language,
which became the most widely
used language in AI.
• The most notable events in the
1960s included the first industrial
robot, Unimate, which began
working on the assembly line
in a General Motors plant in
New Jersey, as well as progress
in automated decision-making
and pattern recognition research.
/Magazine.com