Article of the Month – February 2022
February 1, 2022InPen Insulin bolus calculator, Surfacer catheter system, and RESPMETER
March 1, 20221951 – 1952
The 1950s was a renaissance for AI and Machine learning. Scientists set up the trajectory for the future, by creating the first programming languages...
Christopher Strachey: Christopher Strachey, an English mathematician, pioneered programming languages and computer time-sharing. He was the first to use mathematical principles to create “formal language” for computer programs or a set of rules that converts program elements to machine output. Strachey developed the Combined program language, which has been used as the basis for the renowned and influential programming language “C.” He was also the first to use computer programs in a creative manner and may have been the father of video games. In 1951, he developed a program in which a player could play draughts or checkers against the computer program in the Pilot Ace and the Manchester Mark 1 computers. He was also the first to write a computerized music program on the Ferranti Mark 1 computer to play “Black Sheep.”(1,2)
Christopher Strachey: Christopher Strachey, an English mathematician, pioneered programming languages and computer time-sharing. He was the first to use mathematical principles to create “formal language” for computer programs or a set of rules that converts program elements to machine output. Strachey developed the Combined program language, which has been used as the basis for the renowned and influential programming language “C.”
He was also the first to use computer programs in a creative manner and may have been the father of video games. In 1951, he developed a program in which a player could play draughts or checkers against the computer program in the Pilot Ace and the Manchester Mark 1 computers. He was also the first to write a computerized music program on the Ferranti Mark 1 computer to play “Black Sheep.”(1,2)
Dietrich Prinz : Prinz had a different but similar quest trying to create a Chess-playing program on the Ferranti Mark 1 computer program. He wrote the first limited chess program in 1951. The computer was not powerful enough to play a full game but could find the best move only two moves away from checkmate, known as the “mate-in-two” problem.(3)
John McCarthy:
“At the time I believed if only we could get everyone who was interested in the subject together to devote time to it and avoid distractions, we could make real progress.”
~John McCarthy about the Dartmouth Summer Research Project
Dartmouth College’s summer Artificial Intelligence meeting, which brought together the most prominent computer scientists at the time, was the event behind the establishment of Artificial intelligence as a separate scientific field. The idea of this event was initially John McCarthy’s after noticing the shortcomings of the submissions to the Annals of Mathematics Studies journal, which he edited with Claude Shannon. He was concerned that these submissions did not highlight the vast potentials of computers to develop intelligence beyond simple tasks. During this event, McCarthy developed the term “Artificial Intelligence” and set up an orientation to the field.
In the early 1950s, the domain of “thinking machines” was given an array of names, from cybernetics to automata theory to complex information processing. McCarthy was adamant about bringing the pioneers of the field together to set up the trajectory and the goals of research in the field for the upcoming years and decades. The event’s proposal conveyed these goals by stating, “Every aspect of learning or any other feature 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.” (5,6)
John McCarthy:
“At the time I believed if only we could get everyone who was interested in the subject together to devote time to it and avoid distractions, we could make real progress.”
~John McCarthy about the Dartmouth Summer Research Project
Dartmouth College’s summer Artificial Intelligence meeting, which brought together the most prominent computer scientists at the time, was the event behind the establishment of Artificial intelligence as a separate scientific field.
The idea of this event was initially John McCarthy’s after noticing the shortcomings of the submissions to the Annals of Mathematics Studies journal, which he edited with Claude Shannon. He was concerned that these submissions did not highlight the vast potentials of computers to develop intelligence beyond simple tasks. During this event, McCarthy developed the term “Artificial Intelligence” and set up an orientation to the field.
In the early 1950s, the domain of “thinking machines” was given an array of names, from cybernetics to automata theory to complex information processing. McCarthy was adamant about bringing the pioneers of the field together to set up the trajectory and the goals of research in the field for the upcoming years and decades. The event’s proposal conveyed these goals by stating, “Every aspect of learning or any other feature 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.” (5,6)
