On September 28, 2024, the Computer Museum set up a pop-up exhibit at the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum’s AI Encounters: Past, Present, and Future event. Scott Campbell, Director of the Centre for Society, Technology and Values and Associate Professor, Teaching Stream in Systems Design Engineering Department, supported the creation of the exhibit. The Computer Museum's display showcased examples of artificial intelligence from the mid to late 20th century, running on retro computers that visitors could interact with.

Over time there have been many different definitions of Artificial Intelligence. The Computer Museum decided to display many examples of AI that afre perhaps different than your current understanding. Looking back at the evolution of AI shows how improvements in the field have continued to change our benchmark for what true artificial intelligence looks like.

Virtual Version of AI Pop-up Exhibit Now Available

Navigate through the links below to view each of the four exhibit pages. Each one highlights an early example of AI, along with some related artifacts from the Computer Museum collection.

This article was originally posted on the Computer Museum website.