AI and Autonomous Cars Are Not New Inventions: Both Are Beyond the Retiring Age
The Hype, Myths, and Little Pieces of History of Artificial Intelligence
Many people think AI is a recent invention. It is not. in 2026 it will turn 70 years old. But autonomous cars are new, right? Also, not. The first driverless car hit the roads of New York in 1925 - almost 100 years ago.
Step back in time to 1925, when the inventor Francis P. Houdina astounded New York City with a ground-breaking invention: The first radio-controlled self-driving car – also coined the ‘”American Wonder”.
Radio waves, transmitted from a trailing vehicle, guided the driverless automobile on its journey through New York City. Two sets of waves captured by antennae on the Wonder's sleek frame worked their magic, operating the steering wheel, clutch, brake, gears, and even the horn. Pure wizardry!
But almost 100 years later, autonomous driving still has an acceptance problem.
People fear giving up their human agency and freedom of choice.
And rightfully so: If we put an AI in the driver's seat of our lives, the risk of losing the ability to think for ourselves is very real.
In fact, many people have already lost the capability of navigating without their smartphones.
And with the ability to navigate through the world, we also lose the ability to overcome problems and find solutions. Thus, we could easily drift into an absolute nightmare scenario.
Now we’ve seen that the autonomous car is already a centenarian.
But how about AI in general? Many people think it was invented 3, 5, or at most 15 years ago. That’s not even close.
In 2026 AI will turn 70 years old: August 1955 witnessed a seminal moment in the annals of "artificial intelligence" as the term materialized in a proposal by John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon.
These esteemed individuals, representing Dartmouth College, Harvard University, IBM, and Bell Telephone Laboratories respectively, sought to embark on a comprehensive two-month study of the nascent field.
The culmination of their efforts arrived in July and August 1956, with the Dartmouth Workshop, widely regarded as the official birthdate of this groundbreaking discipline.
Tracing the Concept Back to 1308
Some go even further back and trace the origins of mechanized knowledge creation back to the year 1308, when the Catalan poet and theologian Ramon Llull unveiled his magnum opus, "Ars generalis ultima" (The Ultimate General Art). That was 715 years ago.
In his work, Llull honed his technique of harnessing paper-based mechanisms to generate fresh insights through the combination of concepts. This ancient innovation paved the way for a new era of intellectual exploration.
ChatGTP Already Mentioned in Famous Novel 300 Years Ago
The fantasy of intelligent machines is also frequently portrayed in books and movies. ChatGTP for example was already described in a famous novel dating back to the year 1726 – almost 300 years ago:
In 1726 Jonathan Swift published Gulliver's Travels, which includes a description of “The Engine”, a machine on the island of Laputa "a Project for improving speculative Knowledge by practical and mechanical Operations."
By using it, "the most ignorant Person at a reasonable Charge, and with a little bodily Labour, may write Books in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Law, Mathematicks, and Theology, with the least Assistance from Genius or study."
Sounds familiar? How many of us have attempted to formulate our own thoughts with the charismatic cadence of a Kennedy speech or dared to dream with the same fervor as Martin Luther King Jr., by asking ChatGPT to write us a speech in the style of these two icons, or other famous speakers?
1966: The Year of the First Chatbot
The idea of having a conversation with a chatbot is also neither new, nor was it invented by OpenAI with the birth of ChatGTP.
Let’s talk about ELIZA: In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum, a researcher with MIT – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developed a program called ELIZA. This program was able to take the role of a psychotherapist and conduct a dialogue with a "patient".
The first chatbot was born.
The AI-Winter of the 1970s and the Current Hype
What we are living through today is not the first AI hype. In its almost 70 years of existence, there have been many booms and busts in its development.
In the 1970s, there was even a period called the AI winter. The hype went down because the U.S. government had decided to withdraw from AI research and cut funding for the technology.
But this wasn’t the end of AI. There are many benchmarks of AI history between it’s winter in the 1970s and the current hype. If you would like to know more about it, you may want to have a look at this 2016 Forbes article: A-very-short-history-of-artificial-intelligence
The most recent AI-hype started around 2010 and was propelled by three factors:
Vast volumes of accessible big data have emerged from a plethora of sources, including enterprises, e-commerce platforms, social media, academic institutions, and governmental bodies.
These data sources served as the foundational building blocks for notable advancements in machine learning methodologies and algorithms.
The advancements were underpinned by the increasing computational prowess of more powerful computers, enabling greater processing capabilities.
But that’s not all good news.
The Danger: It’s Learning Patterns From Us
This huge capacity leads us to a concerning point: AI is feeding off our patterns, and reinforces them. The bigger the numbers, the stronger the reinforcement becomes.
That would be good news if we were showcasing particularly good behavior towards each other and our surroundings in general.
But we don't.
Human relationships are often based on zero-sum games (i.e., I win, you lose) and a willingness to harm others. Our relationship with technology is also often based on these kinds of zero-sum games.
We have to change that.
A Hopeful Outlook - Treat Everything and Everyone With Respect
One AI expert once told me in an interview that in Japan, people assume that everything has consciousness. Your kitchen table, your smartphone, your laptop—everything. So, they advise treating everything and everyone with respect.
I believe that's good advice in general.
And if it so happens that AI takes over the world, you'll be safe because you treated it well from the beginning, and it learned this pattern of behavior from you.
How would you describe your own relationship with technology, your surrounding, and your fellow human beings?