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John McCarthy (computer scientist)
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{{Short description|American scientist (1927β2011)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=October 2020}} {{Infobox scientist | name = John McCarthy | image = John McCarthy Stanford.jpg | caption = McCarthy at a conference in 2006 | birth_date = {{birth date|1927|09|04}} | birth_place = [[Boston, Massachusetts]], U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|2011|10|24|1927|9|4}} | death_place = [[Stanford, California]], U.S. | field = [[Computer science]] | workplaces = [[Stanford University]], [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], [[Dartmouth College]], [[Princeton University]] | education = [[California Institute of Technology]] ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]])<br> [[Princeton University]] ([[Master of Science|MS]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]]) | doctoral_advisor = [[Donald C. Spencer]] | doctoral_students = [[Ruzena Bajcsy]]<br />[[Ramanathan V. Guha]]<br />[[Barbara Liskov]]<br />[[Hans Moravec]]<br />[[Raj Reddy]] | known_for = [[Artificial intelligence]], [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]], [[Circumscription (logic)|circumscription]], [[situation calculus]] | spouse = [[Vera Watson]] (her death, 1978)<br>[[Carolyn Talcott]] | prizes = [[Turing Award]] (1971)<br />[[Computer Pioneer Award]] (1985)<br />[[IJCAI Award for Research Excellence]] (1985)<br />[[Kyoto Prize]] (1988)<br />[[National Medal of Science]] (1990)<br />[[Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute)|Benjamin Franklin Medal]] (2003) }} '''John McCarthy''' (September 4, 1927 β October 24, 2011) was an American [[computer scientist]] and [[cognitive scientist]]. He was one of the founders of the discipline of [[artificial intelligence]].<ref>{{Cite AV media |last=Mishlove |first=Jeffrey |date=November 3, 2011 |title=John McCarthy (1927-2011): Artificial Intelligence (complete) β Thinking Allowed |type=video |language=en |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozipf13jRr4 |website=YouTube |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130324052722/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozipf13jRr4&gl=US&hl=en |archive-date=2013-03-24 |access-date=2022-08-08 }} Also, {{Cite AV media |title=with the same title |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozipf13jRr4 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210731014012/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozipf13jRr4 |website=Ghost Archive |archive-date=July 31, 2021 |access-date=2022-08-08 }}</ref> He co-authored the document that coined the term "[[artificial intelligence]]" (AI), developed the [[programming language]] family [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]], significantly influenced the design of the language [[ALGOL]], popularized [[time-sharing]], and invented [[Garbage collection (computer science)|garbage collection]]. McCarthy spent most of his career at [[Stanford University]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=McCarthy |first1=John |title=Professor John McCarthy |url=http://jmc.stanford.edu |website=jmc.stanford.edu}}</ref> He received many accolades and honors, such as the 1971 [[Turing Award]] for his contributions to the topic of AI,<ref>{{cite web |title=John McCarthy β A.M. Turing Award Laureate |url=https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/mccarthy_1118322.cfm |website=amturing.acm.org |language=en}}</ref> the United States [[National Medal of Science]], and the [[Kyoto Prize]].<!-- Best-known accomplishments, then a few topmost honors, with details in body, per suggestions at MOS:LEAD. Needs addition of concise summaries of rest of article, too. --> == Early life and education == John McCarthy was born in [[Boston, Massachusetts]], on September 4, 1927, to an [[Irish people|Irish]] immigrant father and a [[Lithuanian Jewish]] immigrant mother,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shasha |first1= Dennis |last2=Lazere |first2=Cathy |year=1998 |title=Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists |publisher=[[Springer Publishing|Springer]] |page=23 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-0tDZX3z-8UC&pg=PA23 |access-date=February 27, 2016|isbn= 9780387982694 }}</ref> John Patrick and Ida (Glatt) McCarthy. The family was obliged to relocate frequently during the [[Great Depression]], until McCarthy's father found work as an organizer for the [[Amalgamated Clothing Workers]] in [[Los Angeles, California]]. His father came from [[Cromane]], a small fishing village in [[County Kerry]], Ireland.<ref>{{cite news |title=Leading academic who coined the term 'artificial intelligence' |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/leading-academic-who-coined-the-term-artificial-intelligence-1.11243 |newspaper=The Irish Times |access-date=January 28, 2016 |language=en-US}}</ref> His mother died in 1957.<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Computers and Computing, Birth of the modern computer, Software history, LISP of John McCarthy |url=http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Software/LISP.html |website=history-computer.com |access-date=January 28, 2016 |archive-date=January 3, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200103081331/https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Software/LISP.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Both parents were active members of the [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]] during the 1930s, and they encouraged learning and critical thinking. Before he attended high school, McCarthy became interested in science by reading a translation of ''100,000 Whys'', a Russian popular science book for children.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Nilsson |first1=Nils J. |title=A Biographical Memoir |url=http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mccarthy-john.pdf |website=National Academy of Sciences |access-date=2022-02-20}}</ref> He was fluent in the [[Russian language]] and made friends with Russian scientists during multiple trips to the [[Soviet Union]], but distanced himself after making visits to the [[Soviet Bloc]], which led to him becoming a [[Conservatism in the United States|conservative]] [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Earnest |first1=Les |title=Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1968 witnessed by John McCarthy; Letter to Les Earnest dated Nov. 1, 1968 |url=https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/jmc/czech.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20230607162119/https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/jmc/czech.pdf |archive-date=2023-06-07 |access-date=2022-02-20 |website=Brags and Blunders of Lester Donald Earnest}}</ref> McCarthy graduated from [[Belmont High School (Los Angeles)|Belmont High School]] two years early<ref name="LATObit">{{cite news |last=Woo |first=Elaine |date=October 28, 2011 |title=John McCarthy dies at 84; the father of artificial intelligence |url=http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-john-mccarthy-20111027,0,7137805.story |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] }}</ref> and was accepted into Caltech in 1944. He showed an early aptitude for [[mathematics]]; during his teens, he taught himself college math by studying the textbooks used at the nearby [[California Institute of Technology]] (Caltech). As a result, he was able to skip the first two years of math at Caltech.<ref name="HayesMorgenstern">{{cite journal |last1=Hayes |first1=Patrick J. |last2=Morgenstern |first2=Leora |title=On John McCarthy's 80th Birthday, in Honor of his Contributions |journal=[[AI Magazine]] |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=93β102 |publisher=[[Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence]] |year=2007 |url=http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/2063/2057 |access-date=November 24, 2010 |archive-date=September 23, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110923152610/http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/2063/2057 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He was suspended from Caltech for failure to attend [[physical education]] courses.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Sam |title=Arguing A.I.: The Battle for Twenty-first-Century Science |date=March 5, 2002 |publisher=AtRandom |isbn=978-0812991802 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/arguingai00samw }}</ref> He then served in the [[US Army]] and was readmitted, receiving a Bachelor of Science ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]]) in [[mathematics]] in 1948.<ref name = ACM>{{cite web |url=http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/mccarthy_0239596.cfm |title=A. M. Turing award: John McCarthy, United States β 1971 |publisher=ACM |author=Lester Earnest |access-date=September 5, 2012}}</ref> It was at Caltech that he attended a lecture by [[John von Neumann]] that inspired his future endeavors. McCarthy completed his graduate studies at Caltech before moving to [[Princeton University]], where he received a [[PhD]] in mathematics in 1951 with his dissertation "[[Projection (linear algebra)|Projection operators]] and [[partial differential equation]]s", under the supervision of [[Donald C. Spencer]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=McCarthy|first=John|url=https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/2702240|title=Projection operators and partial differential equations|date=1951|language=en}}</ref> == Academic career == After short-term appointments at Princeton and [[Stanford University]], McCarthy became an assistant professor at [[Dartmouth College|Dartmouth]] in 1955. A year later, he moved to [[MIT]] as a research [[fellow]] in the autumn of 1956. By the end of his years at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) he was already affectionately referred to as "Uncle John" by his students.<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=36095&pageno=34 |title=Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution |author=Steven Levy |page=34 |publisher=Gutenberg.org}}</ref> In 1962, he became a full [[professor]] at Stanford, where he remained until his retirement in 2000. McCarthy championed mathematics such as [[lambda calculus]] and [[Logic|invented logics]] for achieving [[Commonsense reasoning|common sense]] in artificial intelligence. == Contributions in computer science == [[File:John McCarthy (2314859532).jpg|thumb|McCarthy in 2008]] John McCarthy is one of the "founding fathers" of artificial intelligence, together with [[Alan Turing]], [[Marvin Minsky]], [[Allen Newell]], and [[Herbert A. Simon]]. McCarthy, Minsky, [[Nathaniel Rochester (computer scientist)|Nathaniel Rochester]] and [[Claude E. Shannon]] coined the term "artificial intelligence" in a proposal that they wrote for the famous [[Dartmouth workshop|Dartmouth conference]] in Summer 1956. This conference started AI as a field.<ref name="LATObit" /><ref name="Roberts">{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=Jacob |title=Thinking Machines: The Search for Artificial Intelligence |journal=Distillations |date=2016 |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=14β23 |url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/thinking-machines-the-search-for-artificial-intelligence |access-date=March 20, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180819152455/https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/thinking-machines-the-search-for-artificial-intelligence |archive-date=August 19, 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref> (Minsky later joined McCarthy at MIT in 1959.) In 1958, he proposed the [[advice taker]], which inspired later work on question-answering and [[logic programming]]. In the late 1950s, McCarthy discovered that [[primitive recursive function]]s could be extended to compute with symbolic expressions, producing the [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp programming language]].<ref name="original-mccarthy-paper">{{cite journal |title=Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine, Pt I |last=McCarthy |first=John |date=April 1960 |journal=[[Communications of the ACM]] |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=184β195 |doi=10.1145/367177.367199 |doi-access=free |citeseerx=10.1.1.422.5235 |s2cid=1489409}} </ref> That functional programming seminal paper also introduced the lambda notation borrowed from the syntax of [[lambda calculus]] in which later dialects like [[Scheme (programming language)|Scheme]] based its semantics. Lisp soon became the programming language of choice for AI applications after its publication in 1960. In 1958, McCarthy served on an [[Association for Computing Machinery]] ad hoc committee on Languages that became part of the committee that designed [[ALGOL 60]]. In August 1959 he proposed the use of recursion and conditional expressions, which became part of ALGOL.<ref>{{cite journal |last=McCarthy |first=John |date=August 1959 |title=Letter to the editor |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=2 |issue=8 |pages=2β3 |doi=10.1145/368405.1773349 |s2cid=7196706}}</ref> He then became involved with developing [[international standard]]s in programming and informatics, as a member of the [[International Federation for Information Processing]] (IFIP) [[IFIP Working Group 2.1|Working Group 2.1]] on Algorithmic Languages and Calculi,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://ifipwg21wiki.cs.kuleuven.be/IFIP21/Profile |title=Profile of IFIP Working Group 2.1 |last1=Jeuring |first1=Johan |last2=Meertens |first2=Lambert |author2-link=Lambert Meertens |last3=Guttmann |first3=Walter |date=August 17, 2016 |website=Foswiki |access-date=October 4, 2020}}</ref> which [[Specification (technical standard)|specified]], maintains, and supports ALGOL 60 and [[ALGOL 68]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ifipwg21wiki.cs.kuleuven.be/IFIP21/ScopeEtc |title=ScopeEtc: IFIP21: Foswiki |last1=Swierstra |first1=Doaitse |last2=Gibbons |first2=Jeremy |author2-link=Jeremy Gibbons |last3=Meertens |first3=Lambert |author3-link=Lambert Meertens |date=March 2, 2011 |website=Foswiki |access-date=October 4, 2020}}</ref> Around 1959, he invented so-called "[[Garbage collection (computer science)|garbage collection]]" methods, a kind of automatic [[memory management]], to solve problems in Lisp.<ref name="original-mccarthy-paper" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/recursive.html |title=Recursive functions of symbolic expressions and their computation by machine, Part I |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004215327/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/recursive.html |archive-date=October 4, 2013 |access-date=November 24, 2013}}</ref> During his time at [[MIT]], he helped motivate the creation of [[Project MAC]], and while at Stanford University, he helped establish the [[Stanford AI Laboratory]], for many years a friendly rival to Project MAC. McCarthy was instrumental in the creation of three of the very earliest [[Time-sharing|time-sharing systems]] ([[Compatible Time-Sharing System]], [[BBN Time-Sharing System]], and [[Dartmouth Time-Sharing System]]). His colleague [[Lester Earnest]] told the Los Angeles Times: {{Blockquote|text=The Internet would not have happened nearly as soon as it did except for the fact that John initiated the development of time-sharing systems. We keep inventing new names for time-sharing. It came to be called serversΒ ... Now we call it cloud computing. That is still just time-sharing. John started it.<ref name="LATObit" />|author=Elaine Woo|source=}} In 1961, he was perhaps the first to suggest publicly the idea of [[utility computing]], in a speech given to celebrate MIT's centennial: that computer [[time-sharing]] technology might result in a future in which computing power and even specific applications could be sold through the [[utility]] business model (like [[water]] or [[electricity]]).<ref>{{cite book |title=Architects of the Information Society, Thirty-Five Years of the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT |editor1-first=Hal |editor1-last=Abelson |first1=Simson |last1=Garfinkel|isbn=978-0-262-07196-3 |publisher=MIT Press |year=1999 |page=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fc7dkLGLKrcC&pg=RA1-PA1|location=Cambridge}}</ref><ref>The lecture, entitled "Time Sharing Computer Systems," is pp. 220-248 in ''[https://archive.org/details/managementcomput00gree Management and the Computer of the Future]'' (ed Martin Greenberger), published 1962, later reprinted as ''Computers and the world of the future'' (1965).</ref> This idea of a computer or information utility was very popular during the late 1960s, but had faded by the mid-1990s. However, since 2000, the idea has resurfaced in new forms (see [[application service provider]], [[grid computing]], and [[cloud computing]]). In 1966, McCarthy and his team at Stanford wrote a computer program used to play a series of [[chess]] games with counterparts in the [[Soviet Union]]; McCarthy's team lost two games and [[draw (chess)|drew]] two games (see [[Kotok-McCarthy]]). From 1978 to 1986, McCarthy developed the [[Circumscription (logic)|circumscription]] method of [[non-monotonic reasoning]]. In 1982, he seems to have originated the idea of the [[space fountain]], a type of tower extending into space and kept vertical by the outward force of a stream of pellets propelled from Earth along a sort of conveyor belt which returns the pellets to Earth. Payloads would ride the conveyor belt upward.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://groups.google.com/forum/m/?hl=en#!topic/sci.space.tech/lxXD4mwuK9E |title=Space Bridge Short |last=McCarthy |first=John |date=July 31, 1994 |website=sci.space.tech [[Usenet newsgroup]] posts |publisher=Google Groups}}</ref> == Other activities == McCarthy often commented on world affairs on the [[Usenet]] forums. Some of his ideas can be found in his sustainability Web page,<ref>{{cite web |last=McCarthy |first=John |date=February 4, 1995 |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ |title=Progress and its sustainability |publisher=formal.stanford.edu|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004221812/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ |archive-date=October 4, 2013 |access-date=November 24, 2013}}</ref> which is "aimed at showing that human material progress is desirable and sustainable". McCarthy was an avid book reader, an optimist, and a staunch supporter of free speech. His best Usenet interaction is visible in rec.arts.books archives. He actively attended San Francisco (SF) Bay Area dinners in [[Palo Alto]] of r.a.b. readers, called rab-fests. He went on to defend free speech criticism involving European ethnic jokes at Stanford.<ref>{{cite web |last=McCarthy |first=John |date=May 12, 1997 |url=https://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/rhf.html |title=Attempt at Censorship of Electronic Libraries at Stanford University in 1989 |publisher=formal.stanford.edu|access-date=December 5, 2023}}</ref> McCarthy saw the importance of mathematics and mathematics education. His [[Usenet]] signature block ([[.sig]]) for years was, "He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense"; his license plate cover read, similarly, "Do the arithmetic or be doomed to talk nonsense."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/%22He$20who$20refuses$20to$20do$20arithmetic$20is$20doomed$20to$20talk$20nonsense%22 |title=He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense |type=Usenet newsgroup sci.environment search}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/science/26mccarthy.html |title=John McCarthy, 84, Dies; Computer Design Pioneer |date=October 26, 2011 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> He advised 30 PhD graduates.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/jmctree.html |date=April 21, 2012 |title=Tree of John McCarthy students for the Computer History Exhibits |publisher=infolab.Stanford.edu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202233546/http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/jmctree.html |archive-date=December 2, 2013 |access-date=November 24, 2013}}</ref> His 2001 short story "The Robot and the Baby"<ref name="baby">{{cite web |last=McCarthy |first= John |date=June 28, 2001 |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/robotandbaby/robotandbaby.html |title=The Robot and the Baby |publisher=formal.stanford.edu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004222119/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/robotandbaby/robotandbaby.html |archive-date=October 4, 2013 |access-date=November 24, 2013}}</ref> farcically explored the question of whether robots should have (or simulate having) emotions, and anticipated aspects of Internet culture and [[social networking]] that became increasingly prominent during ensuing decades.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://wordswithmeaning.org/2011/10/the-death-of-true-tech-innovators-d-ritchie-j-mccarthy-yet-the-death-of-steve-jobs-overshadows-all/ |title=The Death of TRUE Tech Innovators D. Ritchie & J. McCarthy β Yet the Death of Steve Jobs Overshadows All |last=Thomson |first=Cask J. |date=October 26, 2011 |website=WordsWithMeaning blog |access-date=<!-- http://www.webcitation.org/632iLmdFe--> |archive-date=April 26, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120426195920/http://wordswithmeaning.org/2011/10/the-death-of-true-tech-innovators-d-ritchie-j-mccarthy-yet-the-death-of-steve-jobs-overshadows-all/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> ==Personal life== McCarthy was married three times. His second wife was [[Vera Watson]], a programmer and [[mountaineering|mountaineer]] who died in 1978 attempting to scale [[Annapurna I Central]] as part of an [[American Women's Himalayan Expedition|all-women expedition]]. He later married [[Carolyn Talcott]], a computer scientist at Stanford and later Scientific Research Institute [[SRI International|(SRI) International]].<ref>{{cite news |first=John |last=Markoff |date=October 25, 2011 |title=John McCarthy, 84, Dies; Computer Design Pioneer |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/science/26mccarthy.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Biography of Carolyn Talcott |url=http://blackforest.stanford.edu/clt/bio.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202231926/http://blackforest.stanford.edu/clt/bio.html |archive-date=December 2, 2013 |publisher=[[Stanford University]]}}</ref> McCarthy declared himself an atheist in a speech about artificial intelligence at [[Stanford Memorial Church]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://news.stanford.edu/news/1999/march17/mccarthy317.html#:~:text=McCarthy%20described%20himself%20as%20a,thought%20they%20were%20being%20bullied | title=Computer pioneer discusses atheism, artificial intelligence | date=January 23, 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=About John McCarthy |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/personal.html |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=February 1, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004213309/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/personal.html |archive-date=October 4, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=McCarthy |first=John |title=Commentary on World, US, and scientific affairs |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/commentary.html |publisher=Stanford University |date=March 7, 2003 |quote=By the way I'm an atheist. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004213311/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/commentary.html |archive-date=October 4, 2013 |access-date=February 1, 2013}}</ref> Raised as a [[Communism|Communist]], he became a conservative [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] after a visit to [[Czechoslovakia]] in 1968 after the [[Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia|Soviet invasion]].<ref name="earnestjmc">{{cite web |url=https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/jmc/ |title=Biographies of John McCarthy |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=February 14, 2016 |author=Earnest, Les |archive-date=June 11, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160611003431/https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/jmc/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> He died at his home in Stanford on October 24, 2011.<ref>{{cite news |last=Myers |first=Andrew |title=Stanford's John McCarthy, seminal figure of artificial intelligence, dies at 84 |url=https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2011/10/stanfords-john-mccarthy-seminal-figure-artificial-intelligence-dies-84 |access-date=October 26, 2011 |newspaper=Stanford University News |date=October 25, 2011}}</ref> == Philosophy of artificial intelligence == In 1979 McCarthy wrote an article<ref>McCarthy, J. (1979) Ascribing mental qualities to machines. In: Philosophical perspectives in artificial intelligence, ed. M. Ringle. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.</ref> entitled "Ascribing Mental Qualities to Machines". In it he wrote, "Machines as simple as [[thermostat]]s can be said to have beliefs, and having beliefs seems to be a characteristic of most machines capable of problem-solving performance." In 1980 the philosopher [[John Searle]] responded with his famous [[Chinese Room]] Argument,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Searle |first=John R |year=1980 |title=Minds, brains, and programs |url=http://cogprints.org/7150/1/10.1.1.83.5248.pdf |journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=417β457 |doi=10.1017/s0140525x00005756|s2cid=55303721 }}</ref><ref name="Roberts"/> disagreeing with McCarthy and taking the stance that machines cannot have beliefs simply because they are not conscious. Searle argues that machines lack [[intentionality]]. A vast amount of literature {{example needed|date=May 2023}} has been written in support of one side or the other. == Awards and honors == * [[Turing Award]] from the [[Association for Computing Machinery]] (1971) * [[Kyoto Prize]] (1988) * [[National Medal of Science]] (US) in Mathematical, Statistical, and Computational Sciences (1990)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nsf.gov/od/nms/recip_details.cfm?recip_id=233 |access-date=September 27, 2012 |title=President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details 1990 |date=February 14, 2006 |publisher=National Science Foundation}}</ref> * Inducted as a Fellow of the [[Computer History Museum]] "for his co-founding of the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and timesharing systems, and for major contributions to mathematics and computer science" (1999)<ref>{{cite web |author=CHM |title=John McCarthy β CHM Fellow Award Winner |url=http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/John,McCarthy/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403185009/http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/John,McCarthy/ |archive-date=April 3, 2015 |access-date=March 30, 2015}}[http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/John,McCarthy/] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403185009/http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/John,McCarthy/|date=April 3, 2015}}</ref> * [[Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute)|Benjamin Franklin Medal]] in Computer and Cognitive Science from the [[Franklin Institute]] (2003) * Inducted into [[IEEE Intelligent Systems]]' AI's Hall of Fame (2011), for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems"<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1109/MIS.2011.64 |title=AI's Hall of Fame |url=http://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/homepage/2011/0811/rW_IS_AIsHallofFame.pdf |journal=[[IEEE Intelligent Systems]] |volume=26 |issue=4 |pages=5β15 |year=2011 |access-date=September 4, 2015 |archive-date=December 16, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111216235804/http://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/homepage/2011/0811/rW_IS_AIsHallofFame.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> * Named as one of the 2012 [[Stanford University|Stanford]] Engineering Heroes<ref>{{cite news |last=Beckett |first=Jamie |title=Stanford School of Engineering names new engineering heroes |url=http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/december/engineering-school-heroes-120412.html |access-date=December 2, 2012 |newspaper=Stanford News |date=December 2, 2012}}</ref> == Major publications == * McCarthy, J. 1959. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004215444/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/mcc59.html |date=October 4, 2013 |title="Programs with Common Sense"}}. In ''Proceedings of the Teddington Conference on the Mechanisation of Thought Processes'', 756β91. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. * McCarthy, J. 1960. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004215327/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/recursive.html |date=October 4, 2013 |title="Recursive functions of symbolic expressions and their computation by machine"}}. ''Communications of the ACM'' 3(4):184-195. * McCarthy, J. 1963a "A basis for a mathematical theory of computation". In ''Computer Programming and formal systems''. North-Holland. * McCarthy, J. 1963b. Situations, actions, and causal laws. Technical report, Stanford University. * McCarthy, J., and Hayes, P. J. 1969. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130825025836/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/mcchay69.pdf |date=August 25, 2013 |title=Some philosophical problems from the standpoint of artificial intelligence}}. In Meltzer, B., and Michie, D., eds., ''Machine Intelligence'' 4. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 463β502. * McCarthy, J. 1977. "Epistemological problems of artificial intelligence". In ''[[IJCAI]]'', 1038β1044. * {{cite journal |last1=McCarthy |first1=J |year=1980 |title=Circumscription: A form of non-monotonic reasoning |journal=[[Artificial Intelligence (journal)|Artificial Intelligence]] |volume=13 |issue=1β2 |pages=23β79 |doi=10.1016/0004-3702(80)90011-9}} * {{cite journal |last1=McCarthy |first1=J |year=1986 |title=Applications of circumscription to common sense reasoning |journal=Artificial Intelligence |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=89β116 |doi=10.1016/0004-3702(86)90032-9|citeseerx=10.1.1.29.5268 }} * McCarthy, J. 1990. "Generality in artificial intelligence". In Lifschitz, V., ed., ''Formalizing Common Sense''. Ablex. 226β236. * McCarthy, J. 1993. "Notes on formalizing context". In ''IJCAI'', 555β562. * McCarthy, J., and Buvac, S. 1997. "Formalizing context: Expanded notes". In Aliseda, A.; van Glabbeek, R.; and Westerstahl, D., eds., ''Computing Natural Language''. Stanford University. Also available as Stanford Technical Note STAN-CS-TN-94-13. * McCarthy, J. 1998. "Elaboration tolerance". In ''Working Papers of the Fourth International Symposium on Logical formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning'', Commonsense-1998. * Costello, T., and McCarthy, J. 1999. "Useful counterfactuals". ''[[Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence]]'' 3(A):51-76 * McCarthy, J. 2002. "Actions and other events in situation calculus". In Fensel, D.; Giunchiglia, F.; McGuinness, D.; and Williams, M., eds., ''Proceedings of KR-2002'', 615β628. == See also == {{Portal|Biography}} * [[Christopher Strachey]], filed a patent for time-sharing in early 1959 * [[Cornucopian]] * [[Frame problem]] * [[List of pioneers in computer science]] * [[Kotok-McCarthy]] * [[McCarthy 91 function]] * [[McCarthy formalism]] * [[Watson (computer)]] == References == {{Reflist|2}} == Further reading == * Philip J. Hilts, ''Scientific Temperaments: Three Lives in Contemporary Science'', Simon and Schuster, 1982. Lengthy profiles of John McCarthy, physicist Robert R. Wilson and geneticist Mark Ptashne. * [[Pamela McCorduck]], ''Machines Who Think: a personal inquiry into the history and prospects of artificial intelligence'', 1979, second edition 2004. * Pamela Weintraub, ed., ''The Omni Interviews'', New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1984. Collected interviews originally published in ''Omni'' magazine; contains an interview with McCarthy. == External links == {{Commons category|John McCarthy (computer scientist)|John McCarthy}} {{Wikiquote|John McCarthy (computer scientist)|John McCarthy}} * {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131011125002/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/ |date=October 11, 2013 |title=McCarthy's Stanford home page}}. * {{DBLP|name=John McCarthy}} * {{MathGenealogy |id=22145 |title=John McCarthy}} * {{AIGenealogy |id=259 |title=John McCarthy}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20150220060339/http://cs.stanford.edu/jmc Celebration of John McCarthy's Accomplishments at Stanford University]. * [http://www.infoq.com/interviews/Steele-Interviews-John-McCarthy Interview with Guy Steele] conducted at OOPSLA 2008; Set of interviews: * [http://purl.umn.edu/107476 Oral history interview with John McCarthy] at [[Charles Babbage Institute]], University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. McCarthy discusses his role in the development of time-sharing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also describes his work in artificial intelligence (AI) funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, including logic-based AI (Lisp) and robotics. * [http://purl.umn.edu/107503 Oral history interview with Marvin Minsky] at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Minsky describes artificial intelligence (AI) research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), including the work of John McCarthy. * [http://purl.umn.edu/107244 Oral history interview with Jack B. Dennis] at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Dennis discusses the work of John McCarthy on time-sharing, and the influence of DARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office on the development of time-sharing. * [http://purl.umn.edu/107230 Oral history interview with Fernando J. CorbatΓ³] at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. CorbatΓ³ discusses computer science research, especially time-sharing, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), including John McCarthy and research on time-sharing. * [https://www.nasonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/mccarthy-john.pdf National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir] {{S-start}} {{Succession box | before=[[Lucy Suchman]] | title=Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science | after=[[Richard M. Karp]] | years=2003 }} {{S-end}} {{John McCarthy}} {{Lisp programming language}} {{ALGOL programming}} {{Turing Award laureates}} {{National Medal of Science|math-stat-comp}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Mccarthy, John}} [[Category:1927 births]] [[Category:2011 deaths]] [[Category:Belmont High School (Los Angeles) alumni]] [[Category:American computer scientists]] [[Category:American artificial intelligence researchers]] [[Category:California Institute of Technology alumni]] [[Category:Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence]] [[Category:Formal methods people]] [[Category:American people of Irish descent]] [[Category:American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent]] [[Category:Kyoto laureates in Advanced Technology]] [[Category:Lisp (programming language) people]] [[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences]] [[Category:National Medal of Science laureates]] [[Category:Scientists from Boston]] [[Category:Programming language designers]] [[Category:Logic programming researchers]] [[Category:Stanford University School of Engineering faculty]] [[Category:Turing Award laureates]] [[Category:Usenet people]] [[Category:Princeton University alumni]] [[Category:Dartmouth College faculty]] [[Category:Princeton University faculty]] [[Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty]] [[Category:People from Stanford, California]] [[Category:Jewish American atheists]] [[Category:American atheists]] [[Category:Scientists from California]] [[Category:United States Army soldiers]] [[Category:Computer chess people]] [[Category:Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society]] [[Category:Presidents of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence]] [[Category:California Republicans]] [[Category:The Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science laureates]]
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