Dartmouth Conference
| Date | 1956 |
|---|---|
| Duration | six weeks |
| Venue | Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire |
| Organised by | John McCarthy |
| Participants | Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon (who proposed the workshop), with others |
The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence was the name of a 1956 summer workshop now considered by many(though not all) to be the event for artificial intelligence as a field.
The project lasted approximately 6 to 8 weeks, and was essentially an extended brainstorming session. 11 mathematicians and scientists were originally planned to be attendees, and while not all attended, more than 10 others came for short times.
In the early 1950s, there were various names for the field of "thinking machines" such as cybernetics, automata theory, and complex information processing These indicate how different the ideas were on what such machines would be like.
In 1955 John McCarthy, then a young Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Dartmouth College, decided to organize a group to clarify and develop ideas about thinking machines. He picked the name 'Artificial Intelligence' for the new field. He chose the name partly for its neutrality; avoiding a focus on narrow automata theory, and avoiding cybernetics which was heavily focused on analog feedback, as well as him potentially having to accept the assertive Norbert Wiener as guru or having to argue with him.
In early 1955, McCarthy approached the Rockefeller Foundation to request funding for a summer seminar at Dartmouth for about 10 participants. In June, he and Claude Shannon, a founder of Information Theory then at Bell Labs, met with Robert Morison, Director of Biological and Medical Research to discuss the idea and possible funding, though Morison, was unsure whether money would be made available for such a visionary project.
On September 2, 1955, the project was formally proposed by McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester and Claude Shannon. The proposal is credited with introducing the term 'artificial intelligence'.
The Proposal states
The proposal goes on to discuss computers, natural language processing, neural networks, theory of computation, abstraction and creativity (these areas within the field of artificial intelligence are considered still relevant to the work of the field).
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