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Foundations of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Licence
OPEN CC-BY-4.0
Authors
Nidhi Sharma, Honey Singh, Ajay Sharma, Deepak Dagar
Published
2026-07-28 · Zenodo
Language
eng
Length
37166 words
Type
narrative text
Open ↗ Download Open original ↗
3. Game-Playing Programs

Researchers created programs capable of playing chess and checkers, demonstrating that machines could make strategic decisions. These early successes created the belief that human-level machine intelligence might soon become possible. AI Winters: Periods of Decline Despite early enthusiasm, researchers soon discovered that developing intelligent machines was far more difficult than expected. Computers at the time lacked sufficient processing power and memory, and many AI systems struggled with real-world complexity. As a result, funding and public interest declined during certain periods known as “AI Winters.” During these phases:

  • research funding decreased
  • expectations were reduced
  • progress slowed significantly The first major AI Winter occurred during the 1970s, while another slowdown appeared during the late 1980s and early 1990s. These difficult periods taught researchers that intelligence involves far more complexity than simple rule-based programming.