The True Father of Artificial Intelligence - OpenMind

History does not always make things easy for geniuses. When John McCarthy (1927-2011) was born in Boston on the eve of the Great Recession to a humble family of European immigrants, little seemed to presage that this child prodigy was to become a worthy successor to Alan Turing. The delicate health of John's little brother led the McCarthy family, who roamed the country in search of work opportunities, to settle in Los Angeles. It was there that John, a teenager already outstanding in mathematics, came into contact with the California Institute of Technology, Caltech, and taught himself college level mathematics after asking for their used textbooks. The future father of artificial intelligence tried to study while also working as a carpenter, fisherman and inventor (he devised a hydraulic orange-squeezer, among other things) to help his family. When he officially entered Caltech to study mathematics, he had already studied so much on his own that he was allowed to skip the first two courses.