pioneers and milestones of computer technology
and modern machine learning

„The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.“ – Mary Pickford
* 1752 – 1834
Jacquard machine
Joseph-Marie Charles / Jacquard

Joseph Marie Charles (called or nicknamed) Jacquard (French: [ʒakaʁ]; 7 July 1752 – 7 August 1834) was a French weaver and merchant. He played an important role in the development of the earliest programmable loom (the "Jacquard loom"), which in turn played an important role in the development of other programmable machines, such as an early version of digital compiler used by IBM to develop the modern day computer.

* 1815 – 1852
The first known programmer.
Ada Lovelace

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine.

She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and to have published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.

* 1912 – 1954
The Turing machine.
Alan Turing

“I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.”
Alan Turing, Computing machinery and intelligence

 
* 1910 – 1995
The computer says no.
Konrad Zuse

Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse (German: [ˈkɔnʁaːt ˈtsuːzə]; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programmable computer; the functional program-controlled Turing-complete Z3 became operational in May 1941. Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Zuse has often been regarded as the inventor and father of the modern computer.

*1894 - 1964
Cybernetics.
Norbert Wiener

Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and mathematical noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.

Wiener is considered the originator of cybernetics, the science of communication as it relates to living things and machines, with implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, and the organization of society.

Norbert Wiener is credited as being one of the first to theorize that all intelligent behavior was the result of feedback mechanisms, that could possibly be simulated by machines and was an important early step towards the development of modern artificial intelligence.

*1928 - 1971
Deep learning.
Frank Rosenblatt

Frank Rosenblatt (1928 – `71) was an American psychologist notable in the field of artificial intelligence. He is sometimes called the father of deep learning.

1942 - 1946
The six women who built ENIAC.
The ENICA 6

The six women who worked on ENIAC were Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman. They were often referred to as the "ENIAC Six" and they worked under the supervision of John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, who were the chief engineers of the project. There were also other women who worked on the project in various capacities, including as programmers, technicians, and operators.

*1935 - 2008
The inventor of the ELIZA Chatbot.
Joseph Weizenbaum

Joseph Weizenbaum (8 January 1923 – 5 March 2008) was a German American computer scientist and a professor at MIT. The Weizenbaum Award is named after him. He is considered one of the fathers of modern artificial intelligence.

*1935 - 2008
Co-founder of the MIT AI laboratory.
Marvin Lee Minsky

Marvin Lee Minsky (* 9. August 1927 in New York; † 24. Januar 2016 in Boston, Massachusetts[1]) war ein amerikanischer Forscher auf dem Gebiet der künstlichen Intelligenz (KI). Gemeinsam mit John McCarthy, Nathaniel Rochester und Claude Shannon begründete er 1956 auf der Dartmouth Conference den Begriff der künstlichen Intelligenz. Später waren er und Seymour Papert auch Begründer des Labors für Künstliche Intelligenz am Massachusetts Institute of Technology (AI Lab).

* 1947 - ...
Neural Networks.
Geoffrey Hinton

Geoffrey Everest Hinton is a British-Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist, most noted for his work on artificial neural networks. Since 2013, he has divided his time working for Google (Google Brain) and the University of Toronto. In 2017, he co-founded and became the Chief Scientific Advisor of the Vector Institute in Toronto.

Alex Net

...
Expanded
work in progress

to be continued