Frank Rosenblatt was pioneering neural networks and connectionist machine learning in the 1950s with the Mark I Perceptron. While the term perceptron now refers primarily to a learning algorithm, Rosenblatt’s perceptron was the physical machine that executed it.

In a 1958 New York Times article (below), Rosenblatt conveys an ambitious (prescient?) vision of the future of machine learning. The article refers to Rosenblatt’s perceptron as “the embryo of an electronic computer that [the Navy] expects will be able to walk, talk, see, write, reproduce itself and be conscious of its existence.” Continue reading “Rosenblatt’s Perceptron” →