In this episode, we explore the early history of artificial intelligence — beginning with Alan Turing’s groundbreaking ideas about machine intelligence and moving through the rise of symbolic reasoning, early AI programs, and the era of expert systems.

We trace how researchers in the 1950s through the 1980s imagined intelligence as something that could be represented with rules, logic, and carefully structured knowledge. Along the way, we look at the optimism that defined early AI research, the breakthroughs that shaped the field, and the limitations that eventually became clear.

This episode covers:

• Alan Turing’s foundational role in defining machine intelligence
• The Turing Test and early philosophical questions about AI
• Early symbolic AI programs like the Logic Theorist and the General Problem Solver
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