You've seen ChatGPT revolutionize how developers write code. But this "overnight success" actually took 70 years to build!
Understanding AI's journey helps you architect better systems, choose the right tools, and anticipate how GenAI will reshape software development.
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What's the oldest AI technology you've encountered in your development work?
It all started in 1950 when Alan Turing asked: "Can machines think?" His famous Turing Test challenged whether a computer could fool humans in conversation.
This wasn't just philosophy - it set the foundation for every chatbot interface and conversational API we build today.
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Do you think modern code assistants like GitHub Copilot pass the Turing Test for programming?
Early chatbots were surprisingly simple. ELIZA (1966) pretended to be a therapist using basic pattern matching - no real intelligence!
Yet users formed connections with it, teaching us crucial lessons about user experience and interface design that still guide how we build conversational apps.
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Have you ever found yourself debugging by explaining your code to a rubber duck or AI assistant?
The real breakthrough came in the 1980s with "neural networks" - systems that learn like brains do.
But here's the catch: they needed massive computing power that didn't exist yet. AI entered its first "winter" - sound familiar to any failed tech projects you've worked on?
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What breakthrough do you think finally gave AI the computational power it needed?
The game-changer? Graphics cards from gaming! Starting in 1999, GPUs gave AI the parallel processing muscle it needed.
As developers, we understand this perfectly - sometimes the right hardware architecture changes everything. This breakthrough enabled the AI boom transforming our industry.
