Donald Michie
| Donald Michie | |
|---|---|
| Born |
11 November 1923 Rangoon, Burma |
| Died | 7 July 2007 (aged 83) England |
| Residence | Burma, United Kingdom |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Artificial intelligence |
| Institutions | |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
| Doctoral students |
|
| Known for | Artificial intelligence |
Donald Michie (11 November 1923 – 7 July 2007) was a British researcher in artificial intelligence. During World War II, Michie worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, contributing to the effort to solve "Tunny," a German teleprinter cipher.
Michie was born in Rangoon, Burma. He attended Rugby School and won a scholarship to study classics at Balliol College, Oxford. In Spring 1943, however, looking for some way to contribute to the war effort, Michie instead attempted to enroll on a Japanese language course in Bedford for intelligence officers. On arrival, it transpired that the course was full, and instead he trained in cryptography, displaying a natural aptitude for the subject. Six weeks later, he was recruited to Bletchley Park and was assigned to the "Testery," a section which tackled a German teleprinter cipher. During his time at Bletchley Park he worked with Alan Turing, Max Newman and Jack Good.
Between 1945 and 1952 he studied at Balliol College, Oxford University; he received his DPhil, in mammalian genetics, in 1953.
In 1960, he developed the Machine Educable Noughts And Crosses Engine (MENACE), one of the first programs capable of learning to play a perfect game of Tic-Tac-Toe. Since computers were not readily available at this time, Michie implemented his program with about 300 matchboxes, each representing a unique board state. Each matchbox was filled with coloured beads, each representing a different move in that board state. The quantity of a colour indicated the "certainty" that playing the corresponding move would lead to a win. The program was trained by playing hundreds of games and updating the quantities of beads in each matchbox depending on the outcome of each game.
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