Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Creator of Lisp programming language, coins phrase ‘AI’, dies
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20125026-92/john-mccarthy-creator-of-lisp-programming-language-dies/?tag=mncol
I thought it appropriate to take the opportunity to connect some of the readings that we have had with the recent news of John McCarthy’s death. Admittedly, I would not have know McCarthy’s fame without reading the article, but now after doing so I would be remiss to forget. McCarthy created the Lisp programming language with the belief that, “there were aspects of human intelligence that could be described precisely enough that a machine could be programmed to simulate it.” (McCarthy, 1960) This became the language of choice for the term “Artificial Intelligence” he coined in his 1955 research proposal about the topic. Interestingly, he attended MIT in the late 1950’s at the same time Licklider was composing his understanding of the man-computer symbiosis and Weizenbaum was taking this language to create ‘Doctor’ that would respond to human speech; all on the same campus. I can see some definite “co-labbing” happening there. It’s easy to see how these foundations inspired the creation of the theories of technology (Williams) and applications of personal computing (Kay & Goldberg). So after taking a minute to begin to tie these all together, it really does start to sink in how important a man this really was.
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That is a wonderful article. A remembrance of a visionary with the amazing ideas such as voice recognition.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing for everyone to see how much the world has changed within the last twenty five years or so. Voice recognition is every where now. We can now get instructions via a computer in regards to assistance. We can also obtain vital information regarding our bank account balances and so forth via voice recognition over the telephone. I am very excited about the prospects of where technology is headed and it is all because of the research that was begun by people like Mr. McCarthy.
Wow this was a really great article!! I am ashamed that I had no idea who this person was and yet he created such an important aspect of the technology we use today! I also didnt know that he created the term "artificial intelligence". It is amazing how far technology has come since the 1950's! I do think that his work is relevent to this weeks reading and I am happy you shared this information with us.
ReplyDeleteJust to add to my comment.... I thought it was also very interesting that two great minds attended MIT at the same time. This further ties this man into our readinds since Licklider and Man computer simbyosis was one of our more complex readings. It amazes me that with the technology back in their time, that they were able to envision such complex ideas to imporve technology to help people. Great post!!
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