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John McCarthy Born
John McCarthy was born on September 4, 1927. -
Enrolled at California Institute of Technology
At the age of 16, McCarthy enrolled at California Institute of Technology. -
Bachelor's in mathematics
John McCarthy earned a B.S.in mathematics in 1949 at California Institute of Technology. -
Ph. D. in mathematics from Princeton
In 1951, McCarthy received a Ph. D. in mathematics from Princeton University. -
Assistant professor at Dartmouth College
In 1955, McCarthy became an assistant professor at Dartmouth College in New York. At Dartmouth College, McCarthy would make headway in artificial intelligence. -
Automata Studies Published
In a series of published works titled "Automata Studies", McCarthy created the term "artificial intelligence." -
Dartmouth Summer Project on Artificial Intelligence
In the summer of 1955, the Dartmouth Summer Project on Artificial Intelligence went underway. This project investigated if "intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that that a machine can be made to stimulate it" (Andresen 84). This project created the foundation of artificial intelligence having logical thinking and playing games. -
Founded MIT AI Laboratory
John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky founded the AI laboratory at MIT in 1957. -
"Programs With Common Sense" published
In 1959, McCarthy wrote "Programs With Common Sense." This paper is otherwise known as the "advice-taker paper." In this paper, McCarthy proposed the idea of computers taking a command and then accomplishing that command. This paper is the foundation of many tasks AI can accomplish today, such as self-driving cars. -
LISP created
John McCarthy is the creator of the programming language LISP. LISP was the second programming language ever created, behind FORTRAN. LISP is still widely used today. LISP also further allowed AI to make logical deductions through the use of listing instructions. -
Professor at Stanford University
McCarthy became one of the first professors of the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University. -
Stanford AI Laboratory founded
In 1963, McCarthy founded an AI laboratory at Stanford University. -
Turing Award
Due to all his outstanding work with computers science, McCarthy received the Turing Award in 1972. -
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Other accolades
McCarthy has also received other notable awards:
Research
-1985 Excellence Award of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence
-1988 Kyoto Prize
-1980 National Medal of Science
-2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal -
Siri created
One of the most popular uses of AI in modern society is the Apple iPhone's Siri. McCarthy's groundbreaking work on AI paved the way for AI creations such as Siri. -
John McCarthy (1927-2011)
On October 24, 2011, John McCarthy passed away at the age of 84. -
Alexa released
Another popular product containing AI is Amazon's Alexa. Alexa can follow many tasks, such as setting appointments, analyzing traffic routes, as well as ordering products.