John McCarthy - Computer Pioneer - Test 3

C2 Proficiency · Multiple Matching · Proficiency Testbuilder, 4th Edition, Mark Harrison, Macmillan

You are going to read an extract from an article about a man who was involved in the development of computing. For questions 1–10, choose from the sections (A–F). The sections may be chosen more than once.

John McCarthy was often described as the father of 'artificial intelligence' (AI), a branch of computer science founded on the notion that human intelligence can be simulated by machines. McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956, defined it as 'the science and engineering of making intelligent machines' and created the Lisp computer language to help researchers in the AI field. He maintained that there were aspects of the human mind that could be described precisely enough to be replicated: 'The speeds and memory capacities of present computers may be insufficient to simulate many of the higher functions of the human brain,' he wrote in 1955, 'but the major obstacle is not lack of machine capacity but our inability to write programs taking full advantage of what we have.'

McCarthy went on to create AI laboratories at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later at Stanford University where he became the laboratory's director in 1965. During the 1960s he developed the concept of computer time-sharing, which allows several people to use a single, central, computer at the same time. If this approach were adopted, he claimed in 1961, 'computing may some day be organised as a public utility'. The concept of time-sharing made possible the development of so-called 'cloud computing' (the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product). Meanwhile, his Lisp programming language, which he invented in 1958, underpinned the development of voice recognition technology.

McCarthy's laboratory at Stanford developed systems that mimic human skills – such as vision, hearing and the movement of limbs – as well as early versions of a self-driving car. He also worked on an early chess-playing program, but came to believe that computer chess was a distraction, observing in 1997 that it had developed 'much as genetics might have if the geneticists had concentrated their efforts starting in 1910 on breeding racing Drosophila. We would have some science, but mainly we would have very fast fruit flies.'

The concept of AI inspired numerous books and sci-fi films, notably Stanley Kubrick's dystopian 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). In the real world, however, the technology made slow progress, and McCarthy later admitted that there was some way to go before it would be possible to develop computer programs as intelligent as humans. Meanwhile he applied himself to addressing theoretical issues about the nature of human and robotic decision-making and the ethics of creating artificial beings. He also wrote a sci-fi story, The Robot and the Baby, to 'illustrate my opinions about what household robots should be like'. The robot in the story decides to simulate love for a human baby.

McCarthy taught himself mathematics as a teenager by studying textbooks at the California Institute of Technology. When he arrived at the institute to study the subject aged 16, he was assigned to a graduate course. In 1948 a symposium at Caltech on 'Cerebral Mechanisms in Behaviour', that included papers on automata and the brain and intelligence, sparked his interest in developing machines that can think like people. McCarthy received a doctorate in Mathematics from Princeton University in 1951 and was immediately appointed to a Chair in the subject. It was at Princeton that he proposed the programming language Lisp as a way to process more sophisticated mathematical concepts than Fortran, which had been the dominant programming medium until then. McCarthy joined the Stanford faculty in 1962, remaining there until his official retirement in 2000.

During the 1970s he presented a paper on buying and selling by computer. He also invited a local computer hobby group, the Homebrew Computer Club, to meet at the Stanford laboratory. Its members included Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak, who would go on to found Apple. However, his own interest in developing time-sharing systems led him to underestimate the potential of personal computers. When the first PCs emerged in the 1970s he dismissed them as 'toys'. McCarthy continued to work as an emeritus professor at Stanford after his official retirement, and at the time of his death was working on a new computer language called Elephant. Despite his disappointment with AI, McCarthy remained confident of the power of mathematics: 'He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense,' he wrote in 1995.

John McCarthy - Computer Pioneer

the speed at which McCarthy made progress in his career

an opinion McCarthy had which proved to be mistaken

McCarthy's belief that one of his ideas could have a widespread function

McCarthy's attention to the moral aspects of an area of research

what inspired McCarthy to go into a certain area of research

McCarthy's view of what was the cause of a certain problem

McCarthy's attempt to introduce a rival to something commonly used

McCarthy's continuing belief in the importance of a certain field

a common belief about McCarthy

McCarthy's criticism of an area of research he had been involved in

In which section are the following mentioned?

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