AI before AI: The forgotten Soviet programme (www.france24.com)

The Soviet Union’s early foray into artificial intelligence (AI) during the 1950s is gaining recognition, revealing its significant yet often overlooked contributions to the field. Amidst the Cold War, the Soviets developed their AI research predominantly through cybernetics, leading to landmark achievements like Kaissa, the first computer to win a World Chess Championship in 1974. This victory not only showcased the USSR's capabilities in AI but also challenged the notion that advanced computing was solely a Western endeavor. Key figures such as Alexander Kronrod and Dmitry Pospelov played pivotal roles in advancing Soviet AI, promoting its utility for optimizing the socialist economy and addressing practical issues, such as resource identification through innovative algorithms. Notably, Yuri Zhuravlyov’s algorithm for locating gold deposits is cited as an early instance of "machine learning". The legacy of Soviet AI extends to influencing major tech advancements in the West, such as handwriting recognition techniques that benefited Apple's Newton tablet. Despite their creative solutions, resource limitations hampered broader implementations, indicating that the seeds of many contemporary AI concepts were sown in Soviet research, challenging the narrative of Silicon Valley's sole dominance in the field.