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LISP programming language. Due to its flexible memory management and ability to process symbolic expressions quickly, LISP became the language of choice for AI research and development. It introduced several pioneering concepts, including tree data structures, automatic storage management, and a self-hosting compiler. In 1959 while working at Stanford University, where he stayed until retiring at the beginning of 2001, he published a paper titled ‘Programs with Common Sense,’ where he worked with Marvin Minsky and explained the need to find a way to teach common sense and natural law, aiming to equip AI systems with the everyday knowledge that humans take for granted. McCarthy was an early pioneer of time-share computing, which allowed multiple users to interact with a single computer simultaneously. This idea was instrumental in the development of the modern internet and cloud computing. For more on time-share computing, read the Retro Electro article on ‘ The Aloha System: Task II ’
“(The) main reason the 1956 Dartmouth workshop did not live up to my expectations is that AI is harder than we thought.” - Marvin Minsky
laying the groundwork for the future of digital design. For formally bringing Boolean logic to electrical engineering, he was awarded the Alfred Noble Prize (not to be confused with the Nobel Prize) in 1939. If there were a proper beginning of the ‘digital age,’ this document would likely be it. Immediately following his master’s program, he started a PhD program in mathematics at MIT, where he worked on problems describing genetics using algebra and Boolean operators. After school, Dr. Shannon took a position at Bell Laboratories, where he solved problems ranging from ‘color coding’ to encryption. This was during the beginning of the United States’ active involvement in World War II. While at Bell Labs, Shannon seems to have compulsively solved highly complex problems that others couldn’t. He was described as ‘finding answers to important questions nobody else was asking’. He was not ‘cleared’ to work in the area of encryption, but that did not stop him. In his spare time, he worked on the problems surrounding encryption and then explained it to the engineers in
that department while having lunch in the cafeteria. It was later discovered that his work was instrumental in the encryption of communications used in the Manhattan Project and between Winston Churchill and Roosevelt. In 1952, Shannon built ‘Theseus’. An electromechanical ‘mouse in a maze’ that could solve itself automatically and in a very short time. It was made up of a couple of motors, several dozen relays, and a bar magnet dressed up like a mouse. It could navigate a customizable maze to a goal and after it initially solved the maze, it could be lifted and placed anywhere it would move straight to the goal, without any false moves. “The real significance of this mouse and maze, lies in the four rather unusual operations it is able to perform. It has the ability to solve a problem by trial and error means, remember a solution and apply it when necessary at a later date, add new information to the solution already remembered, and forget one solution and learn a new one when the problem is changed.” – C.E. Shannon
Analyzer’, which allowed him to fund his master’s degree in electrical engineering. The ‘Differential Analyzer’ could solve differential equations to the sixth degree. Research scientists presented him with equations each day and Shannon configured the machine to solve them. The machine was made up of around a hundred relays to control the operations, and much of his time was spent returning it to working order and repairing malfunctions. He said he would think of new ways to design each circuit as he worked on it. He found that the symbolic logic he learned at the University of Michigan could be used to describe what happens in a switching relay circuit. His master’s thesis, ‘A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits,’ is one of the most important foundational works in Computer Science. In it, he shows how logic operators, like ‘and,’ ‘or,’ etc., can be used to solve and simplify problems with relays used in telephone switching systems,
Claude E. Shannon, Bell Labs Claude Elwood Shannon (1916- 2001) was an electrical engineer and unicycle enthusiast. His father was an attorney and judge, while his mother was the principal of the local high school. As a child, he was a hobbyist mechanic who built model planes and a radio- controlled boat. He even built a small telegraph between his house and his childhood friend’s house. As a young man, he earned money by repairing radios at the local store. Being an overachiever, he graduated from the University of Michigan in 1936 with bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering. Afterward, he found a position as a research assistant running MIT’s ‘Differential
Marvin Minsky, Harvard University
If McCarthy was the ‘Father of AI,’ then Minsky was the Architect. He grew up in New York City and attended the Bronx High School of Science and was a Navy veteran. In an interview, Minsky explained that when he graduated from grade school in 1944, the military draft was still active in support of World War II. To avoid being drafted into the Army, he enlisted in the Navy, where he was trained in electronics, radio, RADAR, etc. Concerning his time in the Navy, he recounts that he was in boot camp when Japan surrendered, which was a relief. Retro Electro fun fact: legend has it that during his tenure at Bell The Bronx High School of Science taught many of the world’s visionaries, including Carl Sagan, Labs, Minsky invented the ‘Useless Machine’ novelty toy, which is now on office desks worldwide.
“That’s the story of my life, the interplay between Mathematics and electrical engineering.”
– C.E. Shannon
we get technical
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