Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Father of artificial intelligence dies

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."
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.

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