MIT AI Lab
In plain wordsThe artificial intelligence laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded in 1959 and one of the birthplaces of AI and hacker culture; it is now part of MIT's computer science lab, CSAIL.
The artificial intelligence laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1959–2003) and, since 2003, part of its successor, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). One of the founding centers of AI, it produced the LispLisp, prop. n.: A programming language invented in 1958 for AI research, in which programs and data are written the same way, as nested lists in parentheses. It was the main language of AI for decades. language, Terry Winograd's SHRDLUSHRDLU, prop. n.: A program from around 1970 that let people move toy blocks in a simulated world by typing ordinary English commands and questions, and that could explain what it had done and why., Patrick Winston's programs that learned structural descriptions from examples, the Lisp machineLisp machine, n.: A 1970s–1980s personal workstation built specially to run the AI programming language Lisp quickly. When ordinary computers caught up, the market collapsed, helping to bring on an AI winter., Marvin Minsky's theory of framesframe, n.: In classic AI, a ready-made template for a familiar kind of thing or event, such as a kitchen or a job interview, with blanks to fill in and sensible default values. for knowledge representationknowledge representation, n.: The study of how to record knowledge about objects, categories, rules and events in a precise format, so that a program can reason with it and reach conclusions nobody typed in., and Rodney Brooks's behavior-based robotics; Joseph Weizenbaum wrote ELIZAELIZA, prop. n.: A 1960s computer program that chatted by turning a user's own words back into questions, like a therapist. Many users felt understood, though the program understood nothing. at the associated Project MAC. Its programmers originated much of hacker culture, and Richard Stallman launched the free-software movement there. CSAIL, one of the largest university computing laboratories, continues research across machine learning, robotics and the societal effects of AI.
Origin
Begun in 1959 by John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky as the Artificial Intelligence Project; it joined Project MAC in 1963 and became the independent MIT AI Lab in 1970. It merged with the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science to form CSAIL in July 2003.
Related
- Marvin MinskyMarvin Minsky, prop. n.: An American AI pioneer who helped launch the field and MIT's AI laboratory, co-wrote a famous critique of early neural networks, and pictured the mind as a society of many simple parts.
- John McCarthyJohn McCarthy, prop. n.: The American computer scientist who coined the term 'artificial intelligence', invented the Lisp programming language and championed formal logic as the route to machine common sense.
- LispLisp, prop. n.: A programming language invented in 1958 for AI research, in which programs and data are written the same way, as nested lists in parentheses. It was the main language of AI for decades.
- SHRDLUSHRDLU, prop. n.: A program from around 1970 that let people move toy blocks in a simulated world by typing ordinary English commands and questions, and that could explain what it had done and why.
- Lisp machineLisp machine, n.: A 1970s–1980s personal workstation built specially to run the AI programming language Lisp quickly. When ordinary computers caught up, the market collapsed, helping to bring on an AI winter.
- Rodney BrooksRodney Brooks, prop. n.: An Australian-American roboticist who argued that intelligence grows out of acting in the world rather than abstract reasoning, and who co-founded the company behind the Roomba vacuum.
- DARPADARPA, prop. n.: The US military's research-funding agency, which paid for much of the early development of artificial intelligence and the internet and runs prize competitions such as driverless-car races.
Mentioned in
DARPADARPA, prop. n.: The US military's research-funding agency, which paid for much of the early development of artificial intelligence and the internet and runs prize competitions such as driverless-car races.