In 1956 a group of scientists gathered at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, to discuss how to make an artificial intelligence. They all believed it could be done - and in a relatively short time. How close have they come? In the first of five programmes, Colin Blakemore, Professor of Physiology at Oxford University, examines the technical and philosophical difficulties confronting the makers of machines with minds.

Contributors include Professors Herbert Simon, Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Margaret Boden