Where did the idea for Artificial Intelligence (AI) come from? It's much older than computers, starting over 350 years ago with French philosopher René Descartes. He suggested that animals were like complex machines that followed natural laws. While he thought humans were different because of our souls, he argued that our thinking also follows logical rules. This was a revolutionary concept: if thought follows rules, maybe it could be understood and even copied one day, just like the workings of a machine.

Building on this, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz dreamed of a universal language to turn thoughts into symbols. He believed disagreements could then be settled by simply calculating the right answer, like in maths. 'Let us calculate!' he famously said. Leibniz also designed one of the first mechanical calculators, proving that logical steps could be performed by a machine. He showed that calculation wasn't just for numbers, but could also apply to ideas, forming a bridge between mathematics and human thought.

These early ideas laid the groundwork for AI. The core principle was that thinking could be seen as a type of calculation. The belief that human reasoning could be broken down into clear, mathematical steps was the seed from which the field of artificial intelligence grew. Long before any computer was built, these philosophers planted the dream that a machine, guided by pure logic, might one day be able to think and solve problems on its own.