John McCarthy

John McCarthy (September 4, 1927 – October 24, 2011) was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist who is best known for coining the term "Artificial Intelligence" (AI). He was a pioneer in the field of AI and made significant contributions to computer science, including the development of the Lisp programming language.

John McCarthy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in a family of Irish immigrants. He showed an early aptitude for mathematics and science, eventually attending the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and later earning a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

McCarthy coined the term "Artificial Intelligence" in 1956 while organizing the Dartmouth Workshop, which is considered the birth of AI as an academic discipline. He proposed that "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."

In 1958, McCarthy developed the Lisp programming language, which became closely associated with AI research and is still used today.

McCarthy was also instrumental in the development of time-sharing systems, which allowed multiple users to share computer resources simultaneously.

Awards and Honors:

Turing Award in 1971
National Medal of Science in 1991
Kyoto Prize in 1988

John McCarthy's work laid the foundation for the field of Artificial Intelligence and has had a lasting impact on computer science and cognitive science. His ideas continue to influence research in AI, robotics, and beyond.