From Turing to ChatGPT: The origins and transformations of medical artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) has experienced rapid growth in recent years with the advent of high-profile tools such as ChatGPT. However, its roots extend deep into the twentieth century. This article retraces the origins of AI and its major developments, showing how medical AI forms part of a long-standing scientific trajectory that predates the emergence of recent generative models. We first revisit the symbolic origins of AI, with the work of Alan Turing and the first programs capable of reasoning from explicit rules. We then examine the shift toward connectionist approaches centered on neural networks, which have driven major advances through machine learning and the availability of large datasets. Finally, we describe the current rise of generative AI, exemplified by large language models, and discuss its promises and limitations in medicine.