Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
A PROPOSAL FOR THE DARTMOUTH SUMMER
RESEARCH PROJECT ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
J. McCarthy, Dartmouth College
M. L. Minsky, Harvard University
N. Rochester, I.B.M. Corporation
C.E. Shannon, Bell Telephone Laboratories
August 31, 1955
We propose that a 2 month, 10 man study of artificial intelligence
be carried out during the summer of 1956 at Dartmouth College
in Hanover, New Hampshire. The study is to proceed on the basis
of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other fea-
ture of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that
a machine can be made to simulate it. An attempt will be made
to find how to make machines use language, form abstractions and
concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans, and
improve themselves. We think that a significant advance can be
made in one or more of these problems if a carefully selected group
of scientists work on it together for a summer.
The following are some aspects of
the artificial
intelligence
problem:
1. Automatic Computers
If a machine can do a job, then an automatic calculator can
be programmed to simulate the machine. The speeds and
memory capacities of present computers may be insufficient
to simulate many of the higher functions of the human brain,
but the major obstacle is not lack of machine capacity, but our
inability to write programs taking full advantage of what we
have.
2. How Can a Computer be Programmed to Use a Language?
It may be speculated that a large part of human thought con-
sists of manipulating words according to rules of reasoning
and rules of conjecture. From this point of view, forming
a generalization consists of admitting a new word and some
rules whereby sentences containing it imply and are implied
by others. This idea has never been very precisely formulated
nor have examples been worked out.
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