Contents
John McCarthy
The artificial-intelligence pioneer who coined the field’s name and developed Lisp.
Lisp · Time-sharing
- Born
- 4 September 1927
- Birthplace
- United States
- Died
- 24 October 2011
More people
John McCarthy
John McCarthy helped establish AI as a research discipline. His work on programming languages and shared computing shaped how generations of researchers used computers.
Early life
Boston and California
Grew up in a family that moved during the Depression.
Mathematics
Studied at Caltech and completed a doctorate at Princeton.
Career
- 1956
Dartmouth workshop
Co-organised the meeting associated with the founding of AI.
- 1958
MIT
Began developing Lisp.
- 1962
Stanford
Joined the university and helped establish its AI laboratory.
- 2000
Emeritus professor
Retired from Stanford’s faculty while remaining involved in artificial-intelligence research.
Contributions
Lisp
A programming language built around symbolic expressions.
Time-sharing
Advocated interactive access to computers by multiple users.
Turing Award
Recognised his contributions to artificial intelligence.
Beyond computing
Russian language
Learned Russian and maintained contacts with Soviet scientists.
Public arguments
Wrote about technology, sustainability and the future of computing.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Career and work — www-formal.stanford.edu ↗Photo: "null0". CC BY-SA 2.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
