ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an exposition of the investigative method used, the Social construction of science and technology (SCOST), and the reasons for why this method was chosen. It gives a description of the period before 1956 and focuses on the nature of AI as conceived by its founders. The chapter provides reasons for the transition of the pre-1956 period into the AI era. It argues that the founders of AI have been overstating the originality of their approach, and that it would be more accurate to describe it as a step in an ongoing process, and certainly not as a revolution in the Kuhnian sense. Several methods are available for the study of the development of science and technology. The chapter then deals with a simulation of the operation of a living organism and also deals with Turing Machines, and finite automata, that is neural networks.
