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John McCarthy is Born
John McCarthy was born on September 4th, 1927, in Boston, Massachusetts. -
McCarthy Graduates from Caltech
After a brief stint in the Army, John McCarthy would graduate from Caltech with an undergraduate in mathematics. -
McCarthy Receives Doctorate From Princeton
In 1951 John McCarthy received his doctorate in mathematics from Princeton. -
McCarthy & Others Propose AI Workshop
While the term AI did not yet exist, this workshop would be the origins of it. -
McCarthy Proposes Advice Taker
McCarthy proposed the idea of a conversational AI that would answer questions and adapt based on the User's requests in 1958. -
McCarthy Creates LISP
LISP formed the backbone of AI development for 25 years. -
McCarthy Co-Founds MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
McCarthy and Marvin Minsky, who was also part of the 1956 workshop, co founded MIT's AI Lab, now known as CSAIL. -
McCarthy Moves to Stanford
In 1962 McCarthy moved from MIT to Stanford, where he founded their AI lab, SAIL, in 1965. -
McCarthy Receives A.M. Turing Award
McCarthy received this award, Computer Science's highest honor, in 1971. -
McCarthy Publishes "Mathematical Logic in Artificial Intelligence"
This paper is the source for much of what is included on this timeline, controversy, and new ideas. -
McCarthy Retires from Stanford
After a long 32 year career with Stanford, McCarthy retired in 1994. -
McCarthy Hosts Q&A at Stanford
John McCarthy hosted a QA at Stanford in 2007. At this event, among other things, he named the game Go as one of the most problematic fields for AI in terms of playing games. -
John McCarthy Passes Away
McCarthy passed away at the age of 84. -
AlphaGo Announced As Beating European Champion
Just 4 years after John McCarthy passed away, and 9 years after his statement that AI struggled with Go, the AI program AlphaGo would beat a European Go champion. This announcement was delayed to coincide with an article released in Nature. Two months after this announcement, AlphaGo would beat Lee Sedol, one of the top players in the world. -
ChatGPT Realizes Advice Taker
In November 2022, ChatGPT was released to the public. This brought John McCarthy's 60 year old idea to reality.