This is the first of a multi-part series on AI that I will be writing. At the end of this post, you'll find a link to the list where I'll save all future posts. Artificial intelligence (AI) has a long and storied history that can be traced back to the earliest days of computing systems, with examples like automata and mechanical robots. During the first stages of artificial intelligence development, a robot called an automaton was created using just mechanical pieces. The robot could only carry out the predetermined duties that had been programmed into it.

Forty-one years ago, Pamela McCorduck wrote a history of the still-young field of artificial intelligence. It was incredibly ambitious, and the result was a superb work of scholarship. She updated that book, Machines Who Think, twenty-five years later, and declared then that she wouldn't write another volume on the subject. Fortunately for all of us, she went back on that vow. "A history exists of all this, a human story about the invention of artificial intelligence by a handful of brilliant scientists," she writes in This Could Be Important, which went on sale last month (Carnegie Mellon Press).

It is the ultimate scientific question underlying psychology and AI as well as a substantial part of philosophy: What is the nature of the mind? Newell's autobiography (American Psychological Association 1986) puts it thusly: The central line of Newell's research has remained always the quest for understanding the nature of the mind. The detailed analysis of protocols, the development of production systems, pulling together the theory of human problem solving (in the book of the same name, with Herb Simon), the development of the notion of cognitive architecture, the problem-space hypothesis, a theory of how humans acquire cognitive skills, work on artificial intelligence systems for doing demanding intellectual tasks (such as discovering algorithms), the development of a complete architecture for intelligence--these are some of the main stepping stones. They comprise various mixtures of artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology, as chance and opportunity would have it. This central question will occupy Newell for the rest of his research life, no doubt.

De Groot was going on a year long trip to the U.S. and the highlight of his journey was a visit to Herb Simon and Allen Newell. I met Allen for the first time when I came for a two semester long visit to Carnegie Mellon University in 1968. This encounter was a distinct factor in my later decision to join the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. I interacted with Allen much more closely when I became department head in 1979. He was for me a mentor and a sounding board for ideas I wanted to pursue for computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. I enjoyed working with many good friends on the faculty, but Allen was really special. Many of us will remember him for his evenhanded treatment of all students at the Black Friday meetings. He would never pursue his own agenda, he would always look for the merit of a student's work and not whether the rules were violated. He was a staunch defender of the rule that replaces all rules, which says that the only thing that counts is whether or ...

By the early 1960s there were several active research groups in AI, including those at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University, Stanford Research Institute (later SRI International), and a little later the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (USC-ISI). My own involvement in AI began in 1963, when I joined Stanford as a graduate student working with John McCarthy. After completing my Ph.D. in 1966, I joined the faculty at Stanford as an assistant professor and stayed there until 1969 when I left to join Allen Newell and Herb Simon at Carnegie Mellon University

Indeed, this is true, if for no attraction reaches almost all of us. Fairy stories let us enter an enchanted world. We do Magic abounds, though always in special ways. Villainy is there, certainly danger. We need the hidden guidance of The spell is broken, and the Princess smiles and fairy stories to tell us of the trials we must marries the youth who made her laugh.

I met Allen for the first time when I came for a two semester long visit to Carnegie Mellon University in 1968. This encounter was a distinct factor in my later decision to join the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University.

Allen Newell was one of the founders and truly great scientists of AI. His contributions included foundational concepts and ground-breaking systems. His career was defined by the pursuit of a single, fundamental issue: the nature of the human mind. This article traces his pursuit from his early work on search and list processing in systems such as the LOGIC THEORIST and the GENERAL PROBLEM SOLVER; through his work on problem spaces, human problem solving, and production systems; through his final work on unified theories of cognition and SOAR.

Allen Newell, one of the founders of AI and cognitive science, died on July 19th, 1992.