[AI Story] The decisive figures of artificial intelligence (3) John McCarthy, the founder of artificial intelligence

2024-07-04

In the third series, we'll learn about John McCarthy, known as the founder of artificial intelligence. If you haven't checked out the past content of the series yet, I recommend reading it first.

[AI Story] Key Figures of Artificial Intelligence (1) Alan Turing

[AI Story] The decisive figures of artificial intelligence (2) Walter Fitz, the founder of deep learning

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John McCarthy (1927.09.04 to 2011.10.24.) is known as the founder of artificial intelligence. The term artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence), which is still widely used today, was proposed for the first time. Let's take a look at his life and achievements as a computer scientist and cognitive scientist who contributed a lot to today's artificial intelligence.

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John McCarthy, sources

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A very different school day

John McCarthy was an archetypal genius who was quite different; he graduated from MIT's math department at age 21 and received his doctorate from Princeton University at age 24. I also studied at Princeton as an alumnus with John F. Nash (John F. Nash), famous for his movies Beautiful Mind and Game Theory.

Since then, he has done research at Stanford, Dartmouth, MIT, etc., and made the following great achievements.

The Founding of Artificial Intelligence, Dartmouth Conference

It is said that John McCarthy, who was still a college student, heard von Neumann's presentation on automata and McCulloch's presentation on neural network theory at a symposium on brain science (Hixon Symposium) and began to think about the problem of making a thinking machine.* As a result of these concerns, I published a paper called “Science and Engineering for Making Intelligent Machines” in 1955. It is in this paper that the term Artificial Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence) appears for the first time.

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Key participants and the proposal 'A Proposal for the Dartmouth SummerResearch Project on Artificial Intelligence (1955) ', sources

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Then, in 1955, McCarthy sent a proposal to the Rockefeller Foundation to hold a workshop to discuss the manufacture of intelligent machines. The title of the proposal is “A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence,” and the term artificial intelligence also appears. This proposal** can be found on Stanford's separate website*** for McCarthy, where he still worked.

This workshop took place over two months from July to August 1956. Great scholars attended, including proponents John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon. It brings together great pioneers from their youth at a time when the term artificial intelligence wasn't even established yet. ****

In the summer of 1956, the seeds of artificial intelligence development were planted in Dartmouth.

Lisp programming language

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manual page for the Lisp interpreter, sources

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Lisp (list processor, Lisp) is based on the theory abstracted in McCarthy's 1960 paper “Recursivefunctions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine (Recursivefunctions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine)”. It was designed using a language suitable for computation dealing with symbolic data based on “lambda algebra.” ***** Lisp not only implemented AI, but also had tree data structures, dynamic typing, object-oriented programming, and automatic storage space management, which had a major impact on computer engineering in the future. ******

Time sharing system

In 1959, McCarthy proposed a timesharing system for efficiently allocating computing resources. At the time, there was a problem where time within the computer was not evenly distributed, such as the computer's device resources being consumed low or almost none while users were entering data into the program. His idea was to logically extend multiple programming approaches to allow people on different terminals to simultaneously access similar computing resources. *******

McCarthy proposed the concept of constructing a network between interacting computers so that users can interact almost simultaneously. This has also had a significant impact on today's cloud computing concept. Since *******, various operating system types such as real-time systems, distributed processing systems, and multi-processing systems have been developed, but even now, advanced time-sharing system methods are still used in multi-user systems such as clouds and networks. ********

Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab

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SAIL website, sources

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McCarthy has dedicated his whole life to research related to artificial intelligence. I was confident about the future of artificial intelligence and technological advancements. This belief and passion led to the establishment of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) in 1962.

Since its establishment until now, SAIL has functioned as the center of artificial intelligence research. McCarthy himself continued his research activities and proposed various theories and ideas implemented in today's AI technology. Recently, SAIL has continued active research activities such as conducting basic academic and applied research in machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, robotics, and genomic analysis. *********

While finishing

John McCarthy viewed the future of artificial intelligence more positively than anyone else. For example, they already predicted that computers would beat humans in chess games in the 1970s. The next thing he left behind is a glimpse of his conviction, even if you just look at his words.

“I wasn't able to accurately predict how fast artificial intelligence would develop, but at least now it's progressing more than I thought. Obtaining programs with human intelligence is still a very difficult problem. But we'll be able to get it. “**********

Also, in an interview in 2006, “It's not about making it like a human; it's about thinking similarly to humans and surpassing human thinking.” He expressed his thoughts on the goals of artificial intelligence. Instead of just imitating humans, I looked at a higher vision that expanded human thinking. His rational optimism and lifelong commitment are blossoming beautifully today with the development of AI technology.

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* Quote https://m.mt.co.kr/renew/view.html?no=2017101810110154022&outlink=1&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.naver.com&type=outlink&ref=android-app%3A%2F%2Forg.telegram.messenger#_enliple

** Note http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/dartmouth/dartmouth.pdf

*** Note http://jmc.stanford.edu

**** Read the following article for details on motivation, discussion details, attendees, etc. http://www.aitimes.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=119328

***** Citation, reference https://zdnet.co.kr/view/?no=20111025101903

****** Citation, reference http://wiki.hash.kr/index.php/존_매카시#.EB.A6.AC.EC.8A.A4.ED.94.84

******* Citation, reference https://blog-ko.allganize.ai/how-john-mccarthy-shaped-the-future-of-ai/

******** Quote, reference http://wiki.hash.kr/index.php/존_매카시#.EC.8B.9C.EB.B6.84.ED.95.A0_.EC.8B.9C.EC.8A.A4.ED.85.9C

********* Citation, reference https://aihub.or.kr/sites/default/files/2020-02/IF1호-글로벌%20인공지능%20연구의%204대%20키워드와%20시사점-190308.pdf

********** Quote http://wiki.hash.kr/index.php/존_매카시#.EC.83.9D.EC.95.A0

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