How did we get to ChatGPT? The inventions, ideas and rules that made today’s AI, from the first electronic switches to reasoning models. Follow what each milestone built on and what it led to, right up to our news.
100 milestones · 1904 to today · each checked in at least 2 sources
When it happened
Each square is one decade. The brighter the square, the more milestones of that kind: progress was slow for decades, then sped up. Choose a theme to see only its milestones, or a decade to jump to it.
Milestones per theme per decade, from the 1900s to the 2020s
Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), about factory-made workers who rebel, opened in January 1921. Karel Čapek later credited the word “robot” to Josef Čapek, Karel’s brother; it comes from the Czech robota, meaning forced labour.
Why it matters Staged from New York to Tokyo within a few years, the play spread the word “robot” into many languages.
Note The first performance was on 2 January 1921, by an amateur group in Hradec Králové; the Prague National Theatre premiere followed on 25 January 1921. The play was printed in November 1920.
In 1961, the first Unimate robot arm went to work at a General Motors plant in New Jersey. It lifted hot die-cast metal parts from a machine and stacked them.
Why it matters Unimate is widely called the first industrial robot, and it opened the way for programmable robot arms in factories.
Note “First industrial robot” is a common label, not a settled record. The sources give only the year 1961, not the month.
From 1966 to 1972, the AI Center at SRI built Shakey, a mobile robot with a TV camera and other sensors. Shakey could plan tasks, find routes and move simple objects.
Why it matters Shakey’s planning and route-finding methods, such as STRIPS and A* search, shaped later robots and AI software.
Note SRI and IEEE call Shakey the first mobile robot that could reason about its surroundings. Simpler mobile robots came earlier, such as Grey Walter’s robot tortoises around 1950.
In 1973, Waseda University in Tokyo completed WABOT-1, a human-shaped robot. It could walk on two legs, grip objects and talk with people in simple Japanese.
Why it matters Waseda says this early success helped start modern humanoid robot research and shaped many later robots.
Note Waseda and others call WABOT-1 the first full-scale humanoid robot; this is a label, not a measured record. The sources give the year but no exact day.
In 1979, the Stanford Cart, a small robot with a TV camera, crossed a room with obstacles, such as a chair, without human help. It moved about one metre at a time, then paused for 10 to 15 minutes to look and plan.
Why it matters It showed that a robot could find its way around obstacles from camera pictures alone, but only very slowly.
Note The cart itself dates from the early 1960s; Moravec rebuilt it with stereo vision in 1977. Popular accounts say “a chair-filled room”, but the thesis describes courses with a chair and cardboard shapes.
On 20 November 2000, Honda showed ASIMO, a walking humanoid robot, at its Tokyo headquarters. At 120 cm tall, it was built to reach door handles and light switches in rooms made for people.
Why it matters It became one of the best-known humanoid robots, and Honda says its years of demonstrations taught lessons about robots working safely near people.
Note IEEE’s robot guide says Honda introduced ASIMO on 31 October 2000, the day Honda says it was created. The press release and public demonstration came on 20 November 2000.
In September 2002, iRobot began selling Roomba, a robot vacuum cleaner that cleans a floor on its own. It cost $199.95 and used sensors to follow walls and avoid stairs.
Why it matters Roomba brought robots into ordinary homes, and iRobot has reportedly sold about 40 million of them since.
Note iRobot’s press release is dated 18 September 2002; MIT Technology Review says Roomba was unveiled on 23 September. “The first automatic floor cleaner in the US” is iRobot’s own claim.
On 8 October 2005, Stanford’s driverless car Stanley won the DARPA Grand Challenge. It drove the 132-mile desert course in Nevada in under seven hours and won $2 million.
Why it matters Five cars finished after none had in 2004, and team leader Sebastian Thrun later worked on Google’s early self-driving cars.
A milestone goes in when it changed what AI can do, the tools AI is built with, how many people use AI, or the rules for AI. It must be at least a year old: newer events are news.
We checked every milestone in at least two sources and read them: the original paper, patent, announcement or law where it exists, and a history source such as a museum, an encyclopedia or a report from the time. We never cite Wikipedia. Many “firsts” are disputed, so we say when they are, and dates are only as exact as the sources agree.
Last checked 4 October 2026. Found a mistake? Tell us, and we will correct it. How we report