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If the Dartmouth event was to set the ambition of the industry, then the proverbial bubble was burst by what is now generally known as the AI winter, a term that first arose at a conference held in 1984 by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (now the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence).

The expression AI winter reflected the suggestion that enthusiasm for AI had spiraled out of control and that projects carrying an AI label were, in effect, tainted. The AI winter is generally taken to represent a period of underfunding and inactivity, brought on by a hype like that often accompanying technology initiatives (such as that leading to the dot‐com bubble). There are usually considered to be two AI winters: the first during the years 1974–1980 (which predates the creation of the definition) and the second during the period 1987–1993.

Nowadays, AI, machine learning, and cognitive analytics have become sufficiently mainstream that many do not expect another AI winter, and moreover that it is ‘long since over’. The latter comment was made by the futurist writer Ray Kurzweil in his book The Singularity Is Near. In it he portrays a future world that reflects exponential growth in and advancement of AI technology.

The concept of singularity (sometimes known as technical singularity) was first conceived of by the mathematician John von Neumann, who said, ‘The accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life give the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, cannot continue’.

Put another way, singularity ‘is the event or sequence of events likely to happen at the intersection of machine and human intelligence, that is, the period when AI at first matches and eventually surpasses our biological intelligence.’

Singularity encompasses the notion that AI systems will not only develop but become self‐improving. It's suggested that by 2045 there will be some sort of runaway reaction of self‐improvement of technology, leading to an intelligence explosion and a superintelligence that would surpass human intelligence. Kurzweil also specifically says that ‘there will be no distinction, post‐singularity, between man and machine.’