John McCarthy died today

stayontarget

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBIT_MCCARTHY?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Quote from AP:

John McCarthy, a pioneer in artificial intelligence technology and creator of the computer programming language often used in that field, has died. He was 84.

McCarthy was a leader in the artificial intelligence field, coining the term in a 1955 research proposal. He said "every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it."

He went on to create the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, serving as its director from 1965 to 1980.

In 1958, McCarthy invented the programming language Lisp, which paved the way for voice recognition technology, including Siri, the personal assistant application on the newest iPhone.

McCarthy also developed the concept of computer time-sharing, which allowed multiple users to interact with a single computer. That lay the foundation for cloud computing today.

 

 

~another giant has been laid to rest~

hail2dathief

Man that sucks...I guess it does come in threes.  FIrst Steve Jobs, then Dennis Ritchie, and now McCarthy.  Great pioneers in the CS and AI world, they will be missed...

Wizardry

Not to take away from this obvious smart person,but i thought we were talking about the MMA  referee  lol.

I think if we are talking AI,it doesn't quite fall into those areas as those programs are just what you put in you get out,it's not really AI.IMO AI cannot be done well on a computer well not at all because computers cannopt think,it is still always going to be preset actions.You could make a machine so full of technology that it can react to just about any situation,but it is not practical.

It still comes down to is it artificial intelligence or just reactive scripts,and i think the answer is obvious.Example a machine could be made to react as an aimbot,it sees any moving target or heat seek target and auto fires on it.it could be scripted to defend against incoming fire by way of radar seeking,it still is not intelligent it is just scripts reacting to what they were told to do.This is no different than if you told your son to swing the bat at the ball when it comes in,was he using intelligence or just doing what you told him to do?I guess the intelligent part was that he knew if he didn't swing the bat you would make him walk justin Bieber for a whole week :P.

I guess the keyword is "artificial" but believing you can do any more than reactive scripts is an impossible dream.

rfernan9

Thank God before they (including Steve Jobs) died they contribute a lot in this world. their legacy will remain. Adios Amigos