Who Built AI? A Data Story

A scrolling data story tracing the public and private threads braided into the AI industry, c. 1700–2026.

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Published: 2026-09

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Years of AI History Every milestone from the first mathematical neuron in 1943 to the frontier in 2026: the imitation game, Dartmouth, ELIZA, backpropagation, Deep Blue, ImageNet, AlexNet, the Transformer, ChatGPT, reasoning models and agents, on one page. Sep 2, 2026 ↑ 0 ↓ 0 Did you know the term 'Artificial Intelligence' was coined 71 years ago? Did you know the term 'Artificial Intelligence' was coined 71 years ago? | World News hindustantimes.com Sep 1, 2026 ↑ 0 ↓ 0 When Japan Tried to Create Artificial Intelligence in the 1980s Decades before ChatGPT, Japan's Fifth Generation Computer Project promised thinking machines by the mid-'90s. Aug 31, 2026 ↑ 0 ↓ 0 Decades before ChatGPT, video games were sold as having AI A lot of video games from the 1970s and later were touted as having AI. Jason Scott of the Internet Archive has a fun retrospective about these games, with links to playable versions. Here's what Scott says about a title from 1985 that I didn't know about: A Aug 28, 2026 ↑ 0 ↓ 0 The Rapid Evolution Of Artificial Intelligence And Humanoid Robotics Blurs The Line Between Science Fiction And Industrial Reality The Rapid Evolution Of Artificial Intelligence And Humanoid Robotics Blurs The Line Between Science Fiction And Industrial Reality The Daily Scrum News Aug 26, 2026 ↑ 0 ↓ 0 Artificial Intelligence As It Once Was Artificial Intelligence As It Once Was Hackaday Aug 25, 2026 ↑ 0 ↓ 0 Preparing for a Role at Anthropic and OpenAI Preparing for a Role at Anthropic and OpenAI StartupHub.ai Aug 23, 2026 ↑ 0 ↓ 0 The veteran Fortune 500 CEO who turned an 80-year-old AC company into an AI darling First Dave Cote transformed Honeywell. Then out of retirement he placed a stunning bet on a little known company called Vertiv. Aug 22, 2026 ↑ 0 ↓ 0