Is this post card from the past or is this a post card from the future?
A fascinating and often overlooked chapter in AI history. Kunihiko Fukushima and his Neocognitron, a pioneering artificial “brain” was developed in 1979. That laid the foundation for today’s deep learning.
- The “Artificial Brain” (Neocognitron): Created by Kunihiko Fukushima in 1979, it was the world’s first multilayer convolutional neural network. This architecture is now the backbone of modern AI vision systems.
- The Biological Approach: Unlike most Western AI at the time, Fukushima’s goal was to simulate the brain to understand human vision.
- The 1970s Context: He conducted this research during the so-called “AI winter” at NHK’s Science & Technical Research Laboratories.
The WABOT-1 Connection
There was an actual robot rather than just a brain model. WABOT-1, the world’s first full-scale humanoid robot, built in 1973 at Waseda University. It had a limb-control system, vision system, and conversation system, and was estimated to have the mental faculty of a one-and-a-half-year-old child.