1308 Catalan poet and theologian Ramon Llull publishes Ars generalis ultima (The Ultimate General Art), further perfecting his method of using paper-based mechanical means to create new knowledge from combinations of concepts.
1666 Mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz publishes Dissertatio de arte combinatoria (On the Combinatorial Art), following Ramon Llull in proposing an alphabet of human thought and arguing that all ideas are nothing but combinations of a relatively small number of simple concepts.
1726 Jonathan Swift publishes Gulliver's Travels, which includes a description of the Engine, a machine on the island of Laputa (and a parody of Llull's ideas): "a Project for improving speculative Knowledge by practical and mechanical Operations." By using this "Contrivance," "the most ignorant Person at a reasonable Charge, and with a little bodily Labour, may write Books in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Law, Mathematicks, and Theology, with the least Assistance from Genius or study."
1763 Thomas Bayes develops a framework for reasoning about the probability of events. Bayesian inference will become a leading approach in machine learning.
1854 George Boole argues that logical reasoning could be performed systematically in the same manner as solving a system of equations.
1898 At an electrical exhibition in the recently completed Madison Square Garden, Nikola Tesla makes a demonstration of the world’s first radio-controlled vessel. The boat was equipped with, as Tesla described, “a borrowed mind.”
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