Walter Pitts and Warren McCulloch analyzed networks of idealized artificial neurons and showed how they might perform simple logical functions . They were the first to describe what later researchers would call a neural network . One of the students inspired by Pitts and McCulloch was a young Marvin Minsky , then a 24 @-@ year @-@ old graduate student . In 1951 ( with Dean Edmonds ) he built the first neural net machine , the SNARC . Minsky was to become one of the most important leaders and innovators in AI for the next 50 years .