Just a few weeks into 2025, the newly elected president Donald Trump announced an investment of $500 billion to bolster the AI infrastructure in the US. Then, just days later, China, in a move now seen as a counterbalance to the West’s ambitious stride, unveiled DeepSeek, a ‘democratised’ AI platform that, experts say, is much more audacious in its scope and less expensive than its counterpart OpenAI, deemed the state-of-the-art model until then.
While these two giants have mostly dominated conversations on artificial intelligence of late, it should be said that there are thousands of players — big and small — in the fray, signalling that this is indeed the year of AI.
But where did it all begin? This thirst to see machines transcend their form and, finally, think. TNIE dials back time to uncover the humble beginnings of AI to its current omnipresent status.
Turing days and beyond
The answer to our question lies in the quiet folds of Alan Turing’s paper, titled ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’, published in 1950. In it, the young British computer scientist addressed the problem of artificial intelligence and proposed an experiment that became known as the Turing Test.
The idea was that a computer could be said to ‘think’ if a human interrogator could not tell it apart, through conversation, from a human being. Even then, the term ‘artificial intelligence’ did not exist. John McCarthy, an emeritus Stanford professor, takes the credit for it.
According to McCarthy, now hailed as the father of AI, artificial intelligence is “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines”. “The term, and no doubt the idea, piqued a lot of interest and research on the field skyrocketed,” says Neenu Kuriakose, assistant professor at Rajagiri College.
Indeed, by the 1960s, even the US Defence Department was heavily funding various AI-related research.
“Initially, the projects were centred around solving computational problems, such as mathematical theorems, algebra problems and even for playing chess,” she says.
While these revolved around the realm of academia, AI’s commercial potency was evident early on. “In the ’80s, there was an AI programme called MYCIN which used AI to identify the cause of infection and to recommend medications. But the idea for the models like what we are seeing today was born in the ’90s when the concept of machine learning took centre stage,” adds the professor.
If machine learning was about enabling systems to learn and improve themselves using available data, what came after, i.e. deep learning, saw machines learning to use large amounts of data without being explicitly programmed.
Fast forward to 2015 and we saw the advent of OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company that has become synonymous with AI today. According to its founders, their safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) model is a “highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work”.
Omnipresent, yes! Threat? Probably not
And then there’s today, 10 years later, when AI has become an inescapable part of our everyday lives. According to a recent study, adults use AI in 70 per cent of their daily tasks, either knowingly or unknowingly.
“There’s no escaping it. AI is in everything, everywhere. From the alarms you set for the morning, and genre preferences in your streaming platform,” says Neenu.
Of course, that’s only an oversimplification. It’s in so much more… healthcare, academics, banking, agriculture, interior design, etc. Then, there’s also its underbelly, as equally captivating as it is concerning. Virtual girlfriends are perhaps the mildest among the mix.
This unnatural prowess would invariable also rise to anguish — will there be a place for humans once the machines start dominating workplaces.
“Well, artificial intelligence and its allied technologies are certainly going to make human involvement in several industries considerably low,” says Madhavan N G, a tech lead at an MNC.
But this has been in the making for a while now, he points out. “Various tasks in the field of software which require data analysis such as monitoring and alerts sees less manual interventions. Automation has changed this arena,” he says.
Today, one can even develop software, build a user interface for it, and even deploy it using AI. “So yes, this does mean considerably less manpower going forward. But AI has also made it easier for people to upskill themselves and migrate to new fields,” says Madhavan.
Also, how much of an impact AI will have on manpower remains to be seen, Madhavan points out. “It’s still early. But like the internet and cloud computing, the technology is most likely to disrupt our entire ecosystem. So best not to ignore it,” the techie adds.
India’s place in all this
Earlier this week, mindful of developments around the world in the field of artificial intelligence, India too announced plans to invest `500 crore to set up a centre of excellence in AI for education. This bodes well for a country that fuels a bulk of the manpower in tech companies across the world.
There are also various Indian models in play, such as Krutrim, ChatSutra and BharatGPT. But how they fare against AGIs that have already demonstrated their capabilities on the global stage remains to be seen. According to experts, we are likely to see variations of the DeepSeek model in the months to come as the Chinese model is open source and thus accessible to all.
However, the picture is not so rosy. Not until we have proper frameworks in place to restrain and resist anomalies that arise from an explosion of creative freedom that AI makes possible. According to Jiyas Jamal, a lawyer who primarily handles cyber security cases, the number of cases has seen an exponential rise since the advent of artificial intelligence.
“From financial fraud to identity theft to Pocso cases, AI has become a tool for criminals too. Illicit and illegal images and videos crafted by AI too are making rounds on the internet,” says Jiyas.
Just a few days ago, he got a case where a girl’s photographs from Instagram were used to create porn videos. “With AI, you don’t need much technical knowledge and that means, the perpetrator can be anyone,” he adds.
That said, in the hands of the right people, AI can be a boon too. Not long ago, Kerala police leveraged the power of AI to arrest the culprits who were on the run for a murder that happened nearly two decades ago.
“But considering the latest technologies, it’s high time the government made a comprehensive IT law,” explains Jiyas.
“Simultaneously, we need to ramp up awareness drives as new ways to dupe and defraud people are emerging every day. AI will be much more disruptive than the internet. So we have to be ready,” he adds.
Neenu also cautions against too much dependency on AI for daily tasks. “Refrain from using AI to solve your math homework or help you write emails. Too much dependency will rob you of your critical thinking capabilities,” she says.
Remember the Turing Test? “Until now, none of the AI models have successfully passed the test and imitated a human completely. But that day will come. So keep your minds sharp and be ready,” Neenu concludes.
