01Overview

In 1956 McCarthy, Minsky, Shannon and Rochester organised a two-month workshop at Dartmouth. The proposal argued that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence could in principle be described so precisely that a machine could simulate it. The meeting produced no breakthrough, but it named the field.

For the next twenty years symbolism dominated: the Logic Theorist proved mathematical theorems, GPS solved problems by means–ends analysis, ELIZA mimicked conversation with pattern matching. Researchers believed that the right symbolic representation plus the right search strategy would bring intelligence with it. That belief met its first winter in the 1970s.

02History

  1. 1956

    The Dartmouth workshop

    Artificial intelligence gets its name.

  2. 1957

    GPS, the General Problem Solver

    Newell and Simon.

  3. 1958

    LISP

    The programming language of AI.

  4. 1966

    ELIZA

    One of the first chatbots.

03Core concepts

Symbolism

Intelligence is the manipulation of symbols; the core problems are representation and search.

Heuristic search

Prune with rules of thumb to shrink the search space.

General problem solving

Cast a problem as a state space and look for a path from start to goal.

04Hands-on

Do it once — it beats reading it ten times

Write a 30-line solver for the missionaries and cannibals puzzle using breadth-first search, then add a heuristic

05Self-check

Say it in your own words first, then open the answer. Whatever you cannot explain is what to review next.

Can you explain "Symbolism"?

Intelligence is the manipulation of symbols; the core problems are representation and search.

Can you explain "Heuristic search"?

Prune with rules of thumb to shrink the search space.

Can you explain "General problem solving"?

Cast a problem as a state space and look for a path from start to goal.

What problem did it solve, and why was there nothing better at the time?

Go back to the history section: how was this done before, and what did it cost?

If you had to build it today, how would you break it down?

Use the hands-on task above: write a plan of at most three steps before you start.

06Key people

J

John McCarthy

1927 – 2011

Coined “artificial intelligence” and created LISP.

M

Marvin Minsky

1927 – 2016

Co-founder of the MIT AI Lab.

07Further reading

  • A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial IntelligenceMcCarthy et al. · 1955
  • Computation: Finite and Infinite MachinesMarvin Minsky · 1967