Editing Artificial general intelligence (section)

===Classical AI===
{{Main|History of artificial intelligence|Symbolic artificial intelligence}}
Modern AI research began in the mid-1950s.<ref>{{Harvnb|Crevier|1993|pp=48–50}}</ref> The first generation of AI researchers were convinced that artificial general intelligence was possible and that it would exist in just a few decades.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kaplan |first=Andreas |date=2022 |title=Artificial Intelligence, Business and Civilization – Our Fate Made in Machines |url=https://www.routledge.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Business-and-Civilization-Our-Fate-Made-in-Machines/Kaplan/p/book/9781032155319 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220506103920/https://www.routledge.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Business-and-Civilization-Our-Fate-Made-in-Machines/Kaplan/p/book/9781032155319 |archive-date=6 May 2022 |access-date=12 March 2022}}</ref> AI pioneer [[Herbert A. Simon]] wrote in 1965: "machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do."<ref>{{Harvnb|Simon|1965|p=96}} quoted in {{Harvnb|Crevier|1993|p=109}}</ref>

Their predictions were the inspiration for [[Stanley Kubrick]] and [[Arthur C. Clarke]]'s character [[HAL 9000]], who embodied what AI researchers believed they could create by the year 2001. AI pioneer [[Marvin Minsky]] was a consultant<ref>{{Cite web |title=Scientist on the Set: An Interview with Marvin Minsky |url=http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/Hal/chap2/two1.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120716182537/http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/Hal/chap2/two1.html |archive-date=16 July 2012 |access-date=5 April 2008}}</ref> on the project of making HAL 9000 as realistic as possible according to the consensus predictions of the time. He said in 1967, "Within a generation... the problem of creating 'artificial intelligence' will substantially be solved".<ref>Marvin Minsky to {{Harvtxt|Darrach|1970}}, quoted in {{Harvtxt|Crevier|1993|p=109}}.</ref>

Several [[Symbolic AI|classical AI projects]], such as [[Doug Lenat]]'s [[Cyc]] project (that began in 1984), and [[Allen Newell]]'s [[Soar (cognitive architecture)|Soar]] project, were directed at AGI.

However, in the early 1970s, it became obvious that researchers had grossly underestimated the difficulty of the project. Funding agencies became skeptical of AGI and put researchers under increasing pressure to produce useful "applied AI".{{Efn|The [[Lighthill report]] specifically criticized AI's "grandiose objectives" and led the dismantling of AI research in England.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lighthill|1973}}; {{Harvnb|Howe|1994}}</ref> In the U.S., [[DARPA]] became determined to fund only "mission-oriented direct research, rather than basic undirected research".{{Sfn|NRC|1999|loc="Shift to Applied Research Increases Investment"}}<ref>{{Harvnb|Crevier|1993|pp=115–117}}; {{Harvnb|Russell|Norvig|2003|pp=21–22}}.</ref>}} In the early 1980s, Japan's [[Fifth Generation Computer]] Project revived interest in AGI, setting out a ten-year timeline that included AGI goals like "carry on a casual conversation".<ref>{{Harvnb|Crevier|1993|p=211}}, {{Harvnb|Russell|Norvig|2003|p=24}} and see also {{Harvnb|Feigenbaum|McCorduck|1983}}</ref> In response to this and the success of [[expert systems]], both industry and government pumped money into the field.{{Sfn|NRC|1999|loc="Shift to Applied Research Increases Investment"}}<ref>{{Harvnb|Crevier|1993|pp=161–162,197–203,240}}; {{Harvnb|Russell|Norvig|2003|p=25}}.</ref> However, confidence in AI spectacularly collapsed in the late 1980s, and the goals of the Fifth Generation Computer Project were never fulfilled.<ref>{{Harvnb|Crevier|1993|pp=209–212}}</ref> For the second time in 20 years, AI researchers who predicted the imminent achievement of AGI had been mistaken. By the 1990s, AI researchers had a reputation for making vain promises. They became reluctant to make predictions at all{{Efn|As AI founder [[John McCarthy (computer scientist)|John McCarthy]] writes "it would be a great relief to the rest of the workers in AI if the inventors of new general formalisms would express their hopes in a more guarded form than has sometimes been the case."<ref>{{Cite web |last=McCarthy |first=John |author-link=John McCarthy (computer scientist) |date=2000 |title=Reply to Lighthill |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/reviews/lighthill/lighthill.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080930164952/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/reviews/lighthill/lighthill.html |archive-date=30 September 2008 |access-date=29 September 2007 |publisher=Stanford University}}</ref>}} and avoided mention of "human level" artificial intelligence for fear of being labeled "wild-eyed dreamer[s]".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Markoff |first=John |date=14 October 2005 |title=Behind Artificial Intelligence, a Squadron of Bright Real People |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/14/technology/14artificial.html?ei=5070&en=11ab55edb7cead5e&ex=1185940800&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1185805173-o7WsfW7qaP0x5%2FNUs1cQCQ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230202181023/https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/14/technology/behind-artificial-intelligence-a-squadron-of-bright-real-people.html |archive-date=2 February 2023 |access-date=18 February 2017 |work=The New York Times |quote=At its low point, some computer scientists and software engineers avoided the term artificial intelligence for fear of being viewed as wild-eyed dreamers.}}</ref>