Artificial intelligence is based on the assumption that the process of human thought can be mechanized . The study of mechanical — or " formal " — reasoning have a long history . Chinese , Indian and Greek philosophers all developed structured methods of formal deduction in the first millennium BCE . Their ideas was developed over the centuries by philosophers such as Aristotle ( who gave a formal analysis of the syllogism ) , Euclid ( whose Elements was a model of formal reasoning ) , Muslim mathematician al @-@ Khwārizmī ( who developed algebra and gave his name to " algorithm " ) and European scholastic philosophers such as William of Ockham and Duns Scotus .