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Artificial Intelligence At Seventy
Far from its being a new invention, the ideas behind Artificial Intelligence can be traced back almost 3,000 years. In around 350 BC Aristotle identified nineteen syllogisms which he believed captured all valid forms of human reasoning. Five hundred years before that, Homer's epic poem The Iliad contained descriptions of intelligent machines including Talos, a giant bronze automaton that protected Crete by hurling stones at invading ships. Even in the earliest years of computers there were scholarly papers on AI issues including ones by Vannevar Bush and Alan Turing on whether a machine can think, Norbert Wiener on 'Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine' and even a detailed blueprint by Claude Shannon showing how to program a computer to play chess.
In the UK Alan Turing is rightly renowned as a leading pioneer of AI, as well as much else. However, the first public use of the term Artificial Intelligence did not come until 1956, two years after his premature death, with the ‘Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence’ held at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. This was a two month long brainstorming event that at different times was contributed to by many leading scientists and mathematicians of the period. The term 'Artificial Intelligence' in the title was coined by John McCarthy, who went on to make a major contribution to the development of computer science as a discipline. The organisers of the 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project were McCarthy and three other visionaries: Nathaniel Rochester, Claude Shannon and Marvin Minsky. It is now regarded as the foundational event for the new field of Artificial Intelligence.
Happy seventieth birthday, Artificial Intelligence!
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SGAI Events in 2026
The SGAI Virtual Seminar Series is a new series of evening Zoom events, open to all, which eventually we intend to run monthly from October to June, normally on a Wednesday evening from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. (UK time). Participation is free and no prior registration is needed. Further details are available at
https://bcs-sgai.org/seminars/. Copies of speakers' slides etc. are also available from that address when provided.
SGAI Virtual Seminars
A programme of free evening seminars delivered via Zoom and open to all.
Next Seminar: Wednesday March 11th at 6 p.m. 'Generative AI'.
Further details will be announced soon.
Series home page
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UK KDD 2026: Knowledge Discovery in Data
A free virtual evening event open to all.
Details to be announced
UK KDD 2025 Website
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AI in Education
Friday April 17th 2026
Details to be announced
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Trustworthiness and Safety in Generative AI
Friday September 11th 2026 (all day event)
BCS London Office
Details to be announced
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Real AI 2026
Friday September 25th 2026 (all day event)
BCS London Office
Real AI 2025 Website
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AI for Healthcare 2026
Friday November 6th 2026 (all day event)
BCS London Office
AI for Healthcare 2025 Website
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FAIRS 2026
Monday December 14th 2026
Peterhouse College Cambridge
A low cost one-day training event for research students in the same venue as AI-2026.
(Attendance at AI-2026 is not required or expected.)
FAIRS 2025 Website
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Register to be sent information by email about SGAI events
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AI-2026
Tuesday December 15th to Thursday December 17th 2026. Peterhouse College Cambridge.
Our forty-sixth annual conference. Website
A long-running convivial pre-Christmas gathering of the AI community with a strong international flavour in the evocative surroundings of Peterhouse, the oldest college in Cambridge, one of Britain's major university cities.
Conference Features
- A day of workshops on major areas of AI (bookable separately)
- Technical and application keynote lectures
- Refereed papers in two streams: technical and applications
- Refereed poster papers for work in progress
- Proceedings published by Springer in its LNAI series
- A panel session on a topical subject
- An 'AI Open Mic' session
- Prizes for the best paper and best student paper in each of the streams
- A prize for the best presented poster (by delegate voting)
- Day tickets available for all days
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- Meals by candlelight in the medieval dining hall of Peterhouse College
- A drinks reception for delegates on the first evening
- A drinks reception and a gala dinner by candlelight on the second evening with an expert after-dinner speaker and an appearance* by the famous Peterhouse ghost
(* Not guaranteed)
- Discounts for student authors of poster papers, non-author students, members of SGAI and other EurAi member societies
- Discounts for group bookings
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Discounts are available for group bookings for all events.
Further information will be placed on this page as it becomes available.
PAST EVENTS
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Peterhouse College, Cambridge, the venue for AI-2026
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