BAYES

Yes , 1763 . George Grenville takes office as the British prime minister . Haydn composes his Symphony No 13 . And Thomas Bayes writes An Essay Towards Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances , which would underpin Bayes ’ Theorem . The maths behind AI is born .

MARKOV

Andrey Markov describes his technique for stochastic modelling , sequencing event probability based on previous known events . The mathematician ’ s explanation will lead to Markov chains , which are central to modelling real-world processes in statistical form .

TURING

Alan Turing puts forward his idea for a ‘ learning machine ’ that could become artificially intelligent . The Turing test , or imitation game , proposed how a machine might be able to evaluate data like a human . Turing ’ s 1950 paper opens with the words : “ I propose to consider the question ‘ Can machines think ?’”

14 April 2021