Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
One of the products of the Dartmouth workshop was a list of goals for
AI. Sadly there is no record of the complete list but it is known to have
included the creation of a program that could defeat the World Chess
Champion in a match, which was achieved in 1997.
During the workshop McCarthy became attracted to the idea of de-
veloping a programming language specifically suited to Artificial Intelli-
gence work. After the workshop he joined IBM as a consultant where
he helped to develop the language LISP. The design of LISP was very
much geared to solving the type of problems that were creating interest
within the AI community and the language has since held a strong niche
position in AI.
While McCarthy was working with IBM at MIT in 1958-1959,
Nathan Rochester was a visiting professor there and he helped McCarthy
with the development of LISP. Rochester also apparently lent his support
to the creation in 1958 of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Project. In spite
of Rochester's early activity and that of other IBM researchers, the cor-
poration's interest in AI cooled. Although work at IBM on Checkers and
Chess programming continued, with Arthur Samuel and Alex Bernstein
respectively, an internal IBM report prepared around 1960 took a strong
position against the idea of the company giving broad support for AI. It
was to be the leading academic research establishments, MIT, Stanford
University and Carnegie Institute of Technology,
21
that were to run with
the AI baton after IBM's loss of interest in the field.
21
In 1967 the institute was renamed Carnegie Mellon University.
