The incredible life of John McCarthy, who first introduced the world to ‘artificial intelligence’

Artificial intelligence, For some it is a great blessing, for others a great danger. Artificial intelligence, which has gradually become a reality from books to movies, namely fiction, and today is the name given to the technologies of “making computers do things that can be done with human intelligence” in the roughest and shortest way. definition. However, who first used this name has become so valid that it shapes today and even the future.

In this article, the inventor of the concept of artificial intelligence, John McCarthyWe covered every aspect of his life. McCarthy, who has always done good and useful things throughout his successful life, in addition to being the inventor of artificial intelligence. known as the Lisp language We can say that he is also the inventor of the programming language.

John McCarthy’s Successful Teen Years:

John McCarthy was born on September 4, 1927 in Boston, USA, to an Irish immigrant family. Because of the economic crisis forced to move many times† He was the son of a family whose economic situation was not very good. They moved to California when John was just two years old, after his father got a job as an organizer in California.

Although he is late to school due to various health problems, thanks to his intelligence Graduated from high school 2 years early† Having already set his plans for his educational life, McCarthy improved himself by studying advanced math from college textbooks and was exempted from advanced math courses for the first two years at Caltech, where he was hired in 1944.

Uninterrupted academic career:

Unfortunately, he could not show the success that he showed in his school lessons, especially in math class, physical education class. When he was expelled from college for failing to take physical education classes He was a soldier and served in the army for a while.

John McCarthy, II. While serving in the army in World War II, he wanted to decipher the Germans with his mathematical knowledge. He thought that if it were possible to write special programs for computers, computers could learn to think like humans. Re-admitted to Caltech after serving in the military for a while and graduated in mathematics in 1948.

Went to Caltech “Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior” Comparing brains and computers at a symposium on the topic inspired John McCarthy for the idea of ​​artificial intelligence. McCarthy, who embarked on a quest to develop machines that can think like humans, so: “People prefer to work with machines than with bureaucracy.” He has proved his word.

He studied at the best universities in the world:

McCarthy supervised by Donald C. Spencer after successful graduation “Projection Operators and Partial Differential Equations” He completed his dissertation entitled, and received a doctorate in mathematics from Princeton University in 1951. Princeton University and Stanford UniversityIn 1955, after his short work in University of DartmouthHe became an assistant professor.

A year later, McCarthy became a research fellow in the fall of 1956. MIT UniversityHe began work in While working as a research assistant at MIT, he served on a committee that developed the ALGOL programming language in 1956.

He took the first steps of artificial intelligence:

As a young academic in 1956 He hosted the Dartmouth Conference, the first artificial intelligence conference. While defining artificial intelligence at the conference “If all aspects of learning and intelligence are described in great detail, computers can simulate them and therefore think like humans.” said.

Years later, he admitted it was too early to make this statement, but added that he was confident it would happen in the coming years. McCarthy believed that suitable software could be written for computers that would pass the Turing test. To achieve this, he introduced the concept of artificial intelligence and with this effort he Artificial intelligence has evolved as a branch of science.

When McCarthy came up with the idea of ​​artificial intelligence+a, the Cold War flared up between Russia and the United States. For this reason, the US Department of Defense has provided major financial support to research into artificial intelligence. In addition, the US wanted to be the leader in artificial intelligence, because it lagged behind Russia in the space race.

He developed the language Lisp, one of the oldest and most powerful programming languages:

• John McCarthy plays chess with his IBM 7090 computer, 1967.

It has been used continuously for decades and is still used today. He wrote the Lisp language for use in programming artificial intelligence applications. Lisp language became the only language used in artificial intelligence products after 1959 and became the language of choice for those who wrote artificial intelligence programs. This language has continued to evolve to this day and Emacs Lisp, ANSI Common Lisp, Schematic and autolisp dialects such as

He then worked as a professor of mathematics at Stanford University from 1962 until his retirement in 2000. After his retirement, however, he continued his scientific studies at the university.

He has made numerous contributions to artificial intelligence and computer science:

at Stanford In 1965 he founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. and he was the head of this laboratory until 1980. He directed thirty theses on artificial intelligence. McCarthy, who developed the concept of artificial intelligence + a and opened the horizons of scientists, proved again that artificial intelligence is important for the future of humanity.

It was accepted in 1971 as the most important award in this field for its achievements and contributions to computer science. He received the Turing Award. McCarthy, who had lived a life of success, died on October 24, 2011, at his home in Stanford.