 Limited computer power : There was not enough memory or processing speed to accomplish anything truly useful . For example , Ross <unk> 's successful work on natural language was demonstrated with a vocabulary of only twenty words , because that was all that would fit in memory . Hans Moravec argued in 1976 that computers were still millions of times too weak to exhibit intelligence . He suggested an analogy : artificial intelligence requires computer power in the same way that aircraft require horsepower . Below a certain threshold , it 's impossible , but , as power increases , eventually it could become easy . With regard to computer vision , Moravec estimated that simply matching the edge and motion detection capabilities of human <unk> in real time would require a general @-@ purpose computer capable of 109 operations / second ( 1000 MIPS ) . As of 2011 , practical computer vision applications require 10 @,@ 000 to 1 @,@ 000 @,@ 000 MIPS . By comparison , the fastest supercomputer in 1976 , <unk> @-@ 1 ( <unk> at $ 5 million to $ 8 million ) , was only capable of around 80 to 130 MIPS , and a typical desktop computer at the time achieved less than 1 MIPS . 
