Alan Turing
The father of computer science
When you think of AI’s foundations, Alan Turing is often the first name that comes to mind. In the 1930s and 40s, Turing developed the concept of the “universal machine” – a theoretical device capable of performing any calculation, which laid to the groundwork for modern computing.
Turing also proposed a fundamental question in his 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence: “Can machines think?” He proposed what became known as the Turing Test, a method of determining whether a machine can mimic human conversation well enough to be indistinguishable from a person. His ideas didn’t just shape AI – they helped define computer science itself.