View source for Biography:John McCarthy (computer scientist)

{{short description|American computer scientist and cognitive scientist}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = John McCarthy
| image = John McCarthy Stanford.jpg
| caption = McCarthy at a conference in 2006
| birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|2011|10|24|1927|9|4}}
| death_place = Stanford, California, U.S.
| field = [[Computer science]]
| workplaces = [[Organization:Stanford University|Stanford University]], [[Organization:Massachusetts Institute of Technology|Massachusetts Institute of Technology]],
[[Organization:Dartmouth College|Dartmouth College]], [[Organization:Princeton University|Princeton University]]
| alma_mater = [[Organization:Princeton University|Princeton University]], [[Organization:California Institute of Technology|California Institute of Technology]]
| doctoral_advisor = Donald C. Spencer
| doctoral_students = [[Biography:Ruzena Bajcsy|Ruzena Bajcsy]]<br />Ramanathan V. Guha<br />[[Biography:Barbara Liskov|Barbara Liskov]]<br />[[Biography:Hans Moravec|Hans Moravec]]<br />[[Biography:Raj Reddy|Raj Reddy]]
| known_for = [[Artificial intelligence]], [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]], [[Philosophy:Circumscription (logic)|circumscription]], [[Situation calculus|situation calculus]]
| prizes = Turing Award (1971)<br />[[Organization:Computer Pioneer Award|Computer Pioneer Award]] (1985)<br />IJCAI Award for Research Excellence (1985)<br />Kyoto Prize (1988)<br />National Medal of Science (1990)<br />Benjamin Franklin Medal (2003)
}}

'''John McCarthy''' (September 4, 1927 – October 24, 2011) was an American [[Computer scientist|computer scientist]] and cognitive scientist. He was one of the founders of the discipline of [[Artificial intelligence|artificial intelligence]].<ref>{{Cite AV media |last=Mishlove |first=Jeffrey |date=November 3, 2011 |title=John McCarthy (1927-2011): Artificial Intelligence (complete) – Thinking Allowed |type=video |language=en |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozipf13jRr4 |website=YouTube |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130324052722/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozipf13jRr4&gl=US&hl=en |archive-date=2013-03-24 |access-date=2022-08-08 }} Also, {{Cite AV media |title=with the same title |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozipf13jRr4 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210731014012/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozipf13jRr4 |website=Ghost Archive |archive-date=July 31, 2021 |access-date=2022-08-08 }}</ref> He co-authored the document that coined the term "[[Artificial intelligence|artificial intelligence]]" (AI), developed the [[Programming language|programming language]] family [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]], significantly influenced the design of the language [[ALGOL]], popularized [[Time-sharing|time-sharing]], and invented [[Garbage collection (computer science)|garbage collection]].

McCarthy spent most of his career at [[Organization:Stanford University|Stanford University]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=McCarthy |first1=John |title=Professor John McCarthy |url=http://jmc.stanford.edu |website=jmc.stanford.edu}}</ref> He received many accolades and honors, such as the 1971 Turing Award for his contributions to the topic of AI,<ref>{{cite web |title=John McCarthy – A.M. Turing Award Laureate |url=https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/mccarthy_1118322.cfm |website=amturing.acm.org |language=en}}</ref> the United States National Medal of Science, and the Kyoto Prize.<!-- Best-known accomplishments, then a few topmost honors, with details in body, per suggestions at MOS:LEAD. Needs addition of concise summaries of rest of article, too. -->

== Early life and education ==
John McCarthy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1927, to an Irish immigrant father and a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant mother,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shasha |first1= Dennis |last2=Lazere |first2=Cathy |year=1998 |title=Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists |publisher=[[Company:Springer Publishing|Springer]] |page=23 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-0tDZX3z-8UC&pg=PA23 |access-date=February 27, 2016|isbn= 9780387982694 }}</ref> John Patrick and Ida (Glatt) McCarthy. The family was obliged to relocate frequently during the [[Finance:Great Depression|Great Depression]], until McCarthy's father found work as an organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in Los Angeles, California. His father came from Cromane, a small fishing village in County Kerry, Ireland.<ref>{{cite news |title=Leading academic who coined the term 'artificial intelligence' |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/leading-academic-who-coined-the-term-artificial-intelligence-1.11243 |newspaper=The Irish Times |access-date=January 28, 2016 |language=en-US}}</ref> His mother died in 1957.<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Computers and Computing, Birth of the modern computer, Software history, LISP of John McCarthy |url=http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Software/LISP.html |website=history-computer.com |access-date=January 28, 2016}}</ref>

Both parents were active members of the Communist Party during the 1930s, and they encouraged learning and critical thinking. Before he attended high school, he got interested in science by reading a translation of a Russian popular science book for children, called ''100,000 Whys''.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Nilsson |first1=Nils J. |title=A Biographical Memoir |url=http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mccarthy-john.pdf |website=National Academy of Sciences |access-date=2022-02-20}}</ref>  John was fluent in the [[Social:Russian language|Russian language]] and made friends with Russian scientists during multiple trips to the [[Place:Soviet Union|Soviet Union]] but he became disillusioned after making visits to the Soviet Bloc which led to him becoming a conservative Republican.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Earnest |first1=Les |title=Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1968 witnessed by John McCarthy; Letter to Les Earnest dated Nov. 1, 1968 |url=https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/jmc/czech.pdf |website=Brags and Blunders of Lester Donald Earnest |access-date=2022-02-20}}</ref>

McCarthy graduated from Belmont High School two years early.<ref name="LATObit">{{cite news |last=Woo |first=Elaine |date=October 28, 2011 |title=John McCarthy dies at 84; the father of artificial intelligence |url=http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-john-mccarthy-20111027,0,7137805.story |work={{wipe|Los Angeles Times}} }}</ref> McCarthy was accepted into Caltech in 1944.

McCarthy showed an early aptitude for [[Mathematics|mathematics]]; during his teens he taught himself college mathematics by studying the textbooks used at the nearby [[Organization:California Institute of Technology|California Institute of Technology]] (Caltech). As a result, he was able to skip the first two years of mathematics at Caltech.<ref name="HayesMorgenstern">{{cite journal |last1=Hayes |first1=Patrick J. |last2=Morgenstern |first2=Leora |title=On John McCarthy's 80th Birthday, in Honor of his Contributions |journal=AI Magazine |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=93–102 |publisher=[[Organization:Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence|Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence]] |year=2007 |url=http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/2063/2057 |access-date=November 24, 2010}}</ref>
McCarthy was suspended from Caltech for failure to attend physical education courses.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Sam |title=Arguing A.I.: The Battle for Twenty-first-Century Science |date=March 5, 2002 |publisher=AtRandom |isbn=978-0812991802 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/arguingai00samw }}</ref> He then served in the US Army and was readmitted, receiving a BS in [[Mathematics|mathematics]] in 1948.<ref name = ACM>{{cite web |url=http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/mccarthy_0239596.cfm |title=A. M. Turing award: John McCarthy, United States – 1971 |publisher=ACM |author=Lester Earnest |access-date=September 5, 2012}}</ref>

It was at Caltech that he attended a lecture by [[Biography:John von Neumann|John von Neumann]] that inspired his future endeavors.

McCarthy initially completed graduate studies at Caltech before moving to [[Organization:Princeton University|Princeton University]]. He received a PhD in mathematics from Princeton in 1951 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "[[Projection (linear algebra)|Projection operators]] and [[Partial differential equation|partial differential equation]]s", under the supervision of Donald C. Spencer.<ref>{{Cite book|last=McCarthy|first=John|url=https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/2702240|title=Projection operators and partial differential equations|date=1951|language=en}}</ref>

== Academic career ==
After short-term appointments at Princeton and [[Organization:Stanford University|Stanford University]], McCarthy became an assistant professor at [[Organization:Dartmouth College|Dartmouth]] in 1955.

A year later, McCarthy moved to MIT as a research [[Social:Fellow|fellow]] in the autumn of 1956.  By the end of his years at MIT he was already affectionately referred to as "Uncle John" by his students.<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=36095&pageno=34 |title=Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution |author=Steven Levy |page=34 |publisher=Gutenberg.org}}</ref>

In 1962, McCarthy became a full [[Social:Professor|professor]] at Stanford, where he remained until his retirement in 2000.

McCarthy championed mathematics such as [[Lambda calculus|lambda calculus]] and [[Logic|invented logics]] for achieving [[Philosophy:Common sense|common sense]] in artificial intelligence.

== Contributions in computer science ==
[[File:John McCarthy (2314859532).jpg|thumb|McCarthy in 2008]]
John McCarthy is one of the "founding fathers" of artificial intelligence, together with [[Biography:Alan Turing|Alan Turing]], [[Biography:Marvin Minsky|Marvin Minsky]], [[Biography:Allen Newell|Allen Newell]], and [[Biography:Herbert A. Simon|Herbert A. Simon]]. McCarthy, Minsky, [[Biography:Nathaniel Rochester (computer scientist)|Nathaniel Rochester]] and Claude E. Shannon coined the term "artificial intelligence" in a proposal that they wrote for the famous [[Dartmouth workshop|Dartmouth conference]] in Summer 1956. This conference started AI as a field.<ref name="LATObit" /><ref name="Roberts">{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=Jacob |title=Thinking Machines: The Search for Artificial Intelligence |journal=Distillations |date=2016 |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=14–23 |url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/thinking-machines-the-search-for-artificial-intelligence |access-date=March 20, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180819152455/https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/thinking-machines-the-search-for-artificial-intelligence |archive-date=August 19, 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref> (Minsky later joined McCarthy at MIT in 1959.)

In 1958, he proposed the [[Advice taker|advice taker]], which inspired later work on question-answering and [[Logic programming|logic programming]].

In the late 1950s, McCarthy discovered that [[Primitive recursive function|primitive recursive function]]s could be extended to compute with symbolic expressions, producing the [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp programming language]].<ref>{{cite journal |title=Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine |last=McCarthy |first=John |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=184–195 |doi=10.1145/367177.367199 |year=1960 |citeseerx=10.1.1.422.5235 |s2cid=1489409}}</ref> That functional programming seminal paper, also introduced the lambda notation borrowed from the syntax of [[Lambda calculus|lambda calculus]] in which later dialects like [[Scheme (programming language)|Scheme]] based its semantics. Lisp soon became the programming language of choice for AI applications after its publication in 1960.

In 1958, McCarthy served on an ACM Ad hoc Committee on Languages that became part of the committee that designed [[ALGOL 60]]. In August 1959 he proposed the use of recursion and conditional expressions, which became part of ALGOL.<ref>{{cite journal |last=McCarthy |first=John |date=August 1959 |title=Letter to the editor |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=2 |issue=8 |pages=2–3 |doi=10.1145/368405.1773349 |s2cid=7196706}}</ref> He then became involved with developing [[International standard|international standard]]s in programming and informatics, as a member of the [[Biography:International Federation for Information Processing|International Federation for Information Processing]] (IFIP) [[IFIP Working Group 2.1]] on Algorithmic Languages and Calculi,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://ifipwg21wiki.cs.kuleuven.be/IFIP21/Profile |title=Profile of IFIP Working Group 2.1 |last1=Jeuring |first1=Johan |last2=Meertens |first2=Lambert |last3=Guttmann |first3=Walter |date=August 17, 2016 |website=Foswiki |access-date=October 4, 2020}}</ref> which [[Specification (technical standard)|specified]], maintains, and supports ALGOL 60 and [[ALGOL 68]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ifipwg21wiki.cs.kuleuven.be/IFIP21/ScopeEtc |title=ScopeEtc: IFIP21: Foswiki |last1=Swierstra |first1=Doaitse |last2=Gibbons |first2=Jeremy |author2-link=Jeremy Gibbons |last3=Meertens |first3=Lambert |date=March 2, 2011 |website=Foswiki |access-date=October 4, 2020}}</ref>

Around 1959, he invented so-called "[[Garbage collection (computer science)|garbage collection]]" methods, a kind of automatic [[Memory management|memory management]], to solve problems in Lisp.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=367177.367199 |title=Recursive functions of symbolic expressions and their computation by machine |date=April 1960 |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=184–195 |doi=10.1145/367177.367199 |access-date=March 29, 2009|last1=McCarthy |first1=John |s2cid=1489409 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/recursive.html |title=Recursive functions of symbolic expressions and their computation by machine, Part I |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004215327/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/recursive.html |archive-date=October 4, 2013 |access-date=November 24, 2013}}</ref>

He helped to motivate the creation of Project MAC at [[Organization:Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] when he worked there, and at Stanford University, he helped establish the Stanford AI Laboratory, for many years a friendly rival to Project MAC.

McCarthy was instrumental in the creation of three of the very earliest [[Time-sharing|time-sharing systems]] ([[Software:Compatible Time-Sharing System|Compatible Time-Sharing System]], [[Software:BBN Time-Sharing System|BBN Time-Sharing System]], and [[Software:Dartmouth Time Sharing System|Dartmouth Time Sharing System]]). His colleague Lester Earnest told the Los Angeles Times:

{{Quote|text=The Internet would not have happened nearly as soon as it did except for the fact that John initiated the development of time-sharing systems. We keep inventing new names for time-sharing. It came to be called servers ... Now we call it cloud computing. That is still just time-sharing. John started it.<ref name="LATObit" />|author=Woo, Elaine|source=}}

In 1961, he was perhaps the first to suggest publicly the idea of [[Utility computing|utility computing]], in a speech given to celebrate MIT's centennial: that computer [[Time-sharing|time-sharing]] technology might result in a future in which computing power and even specific applications could be sold through the [[Utility|utility]] business model (like [[Chemistry:Water|water]] or [[Physics:Electricity|electricity]]).<ref>{{cite book |title=Architects of the Information Society, Thirty-Five Years of the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT |editor1-first=Hal |editor1-last=Abelson |first1=Simson |last1=Garfinkel|isbn=978-0-262-07196-3 |publisher=MIT Press |year=1999 |page=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fc7dkLGLKrcC&pg=RA1-PA1|location=Cambridge}}</ref><ref>The lecture, entitled "Time Sharing Computer Systems," is pp. 220-248 in ''[https://archive.org/details/managementcomput00gree Management and the Computer of the Future]'' (ed Martin Greenberger), published 1962, later reprinted as ''Computers and the world of the future'' (1965).</ref>  This idea of a computer or information utility was very popular during the late 1960s, but had faded by the mid-1990s. However, since 2000, the idea has resurfaced in new forms (see [[Social:Application service provider|application service provider]], [[Grid computing|grid computing]], and [[Cloud computing|cloud computing]]).

In 1966, McCarthy and his team at Stanford wrote a computer program used to play a series of chess games with counterparts in the [[Place:Soviet Union|Soviet Union]]; McCarthy's team lost two games and drew two games (see [[Software:Kotok-McCarthy|Kotok-McCarthy]]).

From 1978 to 1986, McCarthy developed the [[Philosophy:Circumscription (logic)|circumscription]] method of non-monotonic reasoning.

In 1982, he seems to have originated the idea of the ''[[Astronomy:Space fountain|space fountain]]'', a type of tower extending into space and kept vertical by the outward force of a stream of pellets propelled from Earth along a sort of conveyor belt which returns the pellets to Earth. Payloads would ride the conveyor belt upward.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://groups.google.com/forum/m/?hl=en#!topic/sci.space.tech/lxXD4mwuK9E |title=Space Bridge Short |last=McCarthy |first=John |date=July 31, 1994 |website=sci.space.tech Usenet newsgroup posts |publisher=Google Groups}}</ref>

== Other activities ==
McCarthy often commented on world affairs on the [[Usenet]] forums. Some of his ideas can be found in his sustainability Web page,<ref>{{cite web |last=McCarthy |first=John |date=February 4, 1995 |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ |title=Progress and its sustainability |publisher=formal.stanford.edu|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004221812/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ |archive-date=October 4, 2013 |access-date=November 24, 2013}}</ref> which is "aimed at showing that human material progress is desirable and sustainable". McCarthy was a serious book reader, an optimist, and a staunch supporter of free speech. His best Usenet interaction is visible in rec.arts.books archives. And McCarthy actively attended SF Bay Area dinners in Palo Alto of r.a.b. readers called rab-fests. He went on to defend free speech criticism involving European ethnic jokes at Stanford.

McCarthy saw the importance of mathematics and mathematics education. His [[Usenet]] .sig for years was, "He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense"; his license plate cover read, similarly, "Do the arithmetic or be doomed to talk nonsense."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/%22He$20who$20refuses$20to$20do$20arithmetic$20is$20doomed$20to$20talk$20nonsense%22 |title=He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense |type=Usenet newsgroup sci.environment search}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/science/26mccarthy.html |title=John McCarthy, 84, Dies; Computer Design Pioneer |date=October 26, 2011 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> He advised 30 PhD graduates.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/jmctree.html |date=April 21, 2012 |title=Tree of John McCarthy students for the Computer History Exhibits |publisher=infolab.Stanford.edu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202233546/http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/jmctree.html |archive-date=December 2, 2013 |access-date=November 24, 2013}}</ref>

His 2001 short story "The Robot and the Baby"<ref name="baby">{{cite web |last=McCarthy |first= John |date=June 28, 2001 |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/robotandbaby/robotandbaby.html |title=The Robot and the Baby |publisher=formal.stanford.edu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004222119/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/robotandbaby/robotandbaby.html |archive-date=October 4, 2013 |access-date=November 24, 2013}}</ref> farcically explored the question of whether robots should have (or simulate having) emotions, and anticipated aspects of Internet culture and social networking that have become increasingly prominent during ensuing decades.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://wordswithmeaning.org/2011/10/the-death-of-true-tech-innovators-d-ritchie-j-mccarthy-yet-the-death-of-steve-jobs-overshadows-all/ |title=The Death of TRUE Tech Innovators D. Ritchie & J. McCarthy – Yet the Death of Steve Jobs Overshadows All |last=Thomson |first=Cask J. |date=October 26, 2011 |website=WordsWithMeaning blog |access-date= <!-- http://www.webcitation.org/632iLmdFe-->}}</ref>

==Personal life==
McCarthy was married three times. His second wife was Vera Watson, a programmer and mountaineer who died in 1978 attempting to scale Annapurna I Central as part of an all-women expedition. He later married [[Biography:Carolyn Talcott|Carolyn Talcott]], a computer scientist at Stanford and later [[Organization:SRI International|SRI International]].<ref>{{cite news |first=John |last=Markoff |date=October 25, 2011 |title=John McCarthy, 84, Dies; Computer Design Pioneer |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/science/26mccarthy.html |newspaper={{wipe|The New York Times}}}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Biography of Carolyn Talcott |url=http://blackforest.stanford.edu/clt/bio.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202231926/http://blackforest.stanford.edu/clt/bio.html |archive-date=December 2, 2013 |publisher=[[Organization:Stanford University|Stanford University]]}}</ref>

McCarthy declared himself an atheist in a speech about Artificial Intelligence at Stanford Memorial Church.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://news.stanford.edu/news/1999/march17/mccarthy317.html#:~:text=McCarthy%20described%20himself%20as%20a,thought%20they%20were%20being%20bullied | title=Computer pioneer discusses atheism, artificial intelligence }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=About John McCarthy |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/personal.html |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=February 1, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004213309/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/personal.html |archive-date=October 4, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=McCarthy |first=John |title=Commentary on World, US, and scientific affairs |url=http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/commentary.html |publisher=Stanford University |date=March 7, 2003 |quote=By the way I'm an atheist. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004213311/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/commentary.html |archive-date=October 4, 2013 |access-date=February 1, 2013}}</ref> Raised as a [[Social:Communism|Communist]], he became a conservative Republican after a visit to [[Place:Czechoslovakia|Czechoslovakia]] in 1968 after the Soviet invasion.<ref name="earnestjmc">{{cite web |url=https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/jmc/ |title=Biographies of John McCarthy |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=February 14, 2016 |author=Earnest, Les}}</ref> McCarthy died at his home in Stanford on October 24, 2011.<ref>{{cite news |last=Myers |first=Andrew |title=Stanford's John McCarthy, seminal figure of artificial intelligence, dies at 84 |url=http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/october/john-mccarthy-obit-102511.html |access-date=October 26, 2011 |newspaper=Stanford University News |date=October 25, 2011}}</ref>

== Philosophy of artificial intelligence ==

In 1979 McCarthy wrote an article<ref>McCarthy, J. (1979) Ascribing mental qualities to machines. In: Philosophical perspectives in artificial intelligence, ed. M. Ringle. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.</ref> entitled "Ascribing Mental Qualities to Machines". In it he wrote, "Machines as simple as thermostats can be said to have beliefs, and having beliefs seems to be a characteristic of most machines capable of problem-solving performance." In 1980 the philosopher [[Biography:John Searle|John Searle]] responded with his famous Chinese Room Argument,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Searle |first=John R |year=1980 |title=Minds, brains, and programs |url=http://cogprints.org/7150/1/10.1.1.83.5248.pdf |journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=417–457 |doi=10.1017/s0140525x00005756|s2cid=55303721 }}</ref><ref name="Roberts"/> disagreeing with McCarthy and taking the stance that machines cannot have beliefs simply because they are not conscious. Searle argues that machines lack "understanding" or "[[Philosophy:Intentionality|intentionality]]" (a term commonly used in the philosophy of mind). A vast amount of literature has been written in support of one side or the other.

== Awards and honors ==
* Turing Award from the [[Organization:Association for Computing Machinery|Association for Computing Machinery]] (1971).
* Kyoto Prize (1988).
* National Medal of Science (USA) in Mathematical, Statistical, and Computational Sciences (1990).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nsf.gov/od/nms/recip_details.cfm?recip_id=233 |access-date=September 27, 2012 |title=President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details 1990 |date=February 14, 2006 |publisher=National Science Foundation}}</ref>
* Inducted as a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for his co-founding of the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and timesharing systems, and for major contributions to mathematics and computer science". (1999)<ref>{{cite web |title=John McCarthy – CHM Fellow Award Winner |author=CHM |url=http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/John,McCarthy/ |access-date=March 30, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403185009/http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/John,McCarthy/ |archive-date=April 3, 2015 |url-status=dead }}[http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/John,McCarthy/] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403185009/http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/John,McCarthy/ |date=April 3, 2015 }}</ref>
* Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science from the Franklin Institute (2003).
* Inducted into [[IEEE Intelligent Systems]]' AI's Hall of Fame (2011), for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems".<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1109/MIS.2011.64 |title=AI's Hall of Fame |url=http://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/homepage/2011/0811/rW_IS_AIsHallofFame.pdf |journal=[[IEEE Intelligent Systems]] |volume=26 |issue=4 |pages=5–15 |year=2011 |access-date=September 4, 2015 |archive-date=December 16, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111216235804/http://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/homepage/2011/0811/rW_IS_AIsHallofFame.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/399442 |title=IEEE Computer Society Magazine Honors Artificial Intelligence Leaders |newspaper=DigitalJournal.com |date=August 24, 2011 |access-date=September 18, 2011}} Press release source: ''PRWeb'' ([[Software:Vocus|Vocus]]).</ref>
* Named as one of the 2012 [[Organization:Stanford University|Stanford]] Engineering Heroes.<ref>{{cite news |last=Beckett |first=Jamie |title=Stanford School of Engineering names new engineering heroes |url=http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/december/engineering-school-heroes-120412.html |access-date=December 2, 2012 |newspaper=Stanford News |date=December 2, 2012}}</ref>

== Major publications ==
* McCarthy, J. 1959. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004215444/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/mcc59.html |date=October 4, 2013 |title="Programs with Common Sense"}}. In ''Proceedings of the Teddington Conference on the Mechanization of Thought Processes'', 756–91. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
* McCarthy, J. 1960. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004215327/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/recursive.html |date=October 4, 2013 |title="Recursive functions of symbolic expressions and their computation by machine"}}. ''Communications of the ACM'' 3(4):184-195.
* McCarthy, J. 1963a "A basis for a mathematical theory of computation". In ''Computer Programming and formal systems''. North-Holland.
* McCarthy, J. 1963b. Situations, actions, and causal laws. Technical report, Stanford University.
* McCarthy, J., and Hayes, P. J. 1969. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130825025836/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/mcchay69.pdf |date=August 25, 2013 |title=Some philosophical problems from the standpoint of artificial intelligence}}. In Meltzer, B., and Michie, D., eds., ''Machine Intelligence'' 4. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 463–502.
* McCarthy, J. 1977. "Epistemological problems of artificial intelligence". In ''IJCAI'', 1038–1044.
* {{cite journal |last1=McCarthy |first1=J |year=1980 |title=Circumscription: A form of non-monotonic reasoning |journal=Artificial Intelligence |volume=13 |issue=1–2 |pages=23–79 |doi=10.1016/0004-3702(80)90011-9}}
* {{cite journal |last1=McCarthy |first1=J |year=1986 |title=Applications of circumscription to common sense reasoning |journal=Artificial Intelligence |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=89–116 |doi=10.1016/0004-3702(86)90032-9|citeseerx=10.1.1.29.5268 }}
* McCarthy, J. 1990. "Generality in artificial intelligence". In Lifschitz, V., ed., ''Formalizing Common Sense''. Ablex. 226–236.
* McCarthy, J. 1993. "Notes on formalizing context". In ''IJCAI'', 555–562.
* McCarthy, J., and Buvac, S. 1997. "Formalizing context: Expanded notes". In Aliseda, A.; van Glabbeek, R.; and Westerstahl, D., eds., ''Computing Natural Language''. Stanford University. Also available as Stanford Technical Note STAN-CS-TN-94-13.
* McCarthy, J. 1998. "Elaboration tolerance". In ''Working Papers of the Fourth International Symposium on Logical formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning'', Commonsense-1998.
* Costello, T., and McCarthy, J. 1999. "Useful counterfactuals". ''Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence'' 3(A):51-76
* McCarthy, J. 2002. "Actions and other events in situation calculus". In Fensel, D.; Giunchiglia, F.; McGuinness, D.; and Williams, M., eds., ''Proceedings of KR-2002'', 615–628.

== See also ==
* [[Biography:Christopher Strachey|Christopher Strachey]], filed a patent for time-sharing in early 1959
* Cornucopian
* [[Frame problem]]
* List of pioneers in computer science
* [[Software:Kotok-McCarthy|Kotok-McCarthy]]
* [[McCarthy 91 function]]
* McCarthy formalism
* [[Engineering:Watson (computer)|Watson (computer)]]

== References ==
{{Reflist|2}}

== Further reading ==
* Philip J. Hilts, ''Scientific Temperaments: Three Lives in Contemporary Science'', Simon and Schuster, 1982. Lengthy profiles of John McCarthy, physicist Robert R. Wilson and geneticist Mark Ptashne.
* Pamela McCorduck, ''Machines Who Think: a personal inquiry into the history and prospects of artificial intelligence'', 1979, second edition 2004.
* Pamela Weintraub, ed., ''The Omni Interviews'', New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1984. Collected interviews originally published in ''Omni'' magazine; contains an interview with McCarthy.

== External links ==
* {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131011125002/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/ |date=October 11, 2013 |title=McCarthy's Stanford home page}}.
* {{DBLP|name=John McCarthy}}
* {{MathGenealogy |id=22145 |title=John McCarthy}}
* {{AIGenealogy |id=259 |title=John McCarthy}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20150220060339/http://cs.stanford.edu/jmc Celebration of John McCarthy's Accomplishments at Stanford University].
* [http://www.infoq.com/interviews/Steele-Interviews-John-McCarthy Interview with Guy Steele] conducted at OOPSLA 2008; Set of interviews:
* [http://purl.umn.edu/107476 Oral history interview with John McCarthy] at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. McCarthy discusses his role in the development of time-sharing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also describes his work in artificial intelligence (AI) funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, including logic-based AI (Lisp) and robotics.
* [http://purl.umn.edu/107503 Oral history interview with Marvin Minsky] at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Minsky describes artificial intelligence (AI) research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), including the work of John McCarthy.
* [http://purl.umn.edu/107244 Oral history interview with Jack B. Dennis] at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Dennis discusses the work of John McCarthy on time-sharing, and the influence of DARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office on the development of time-sharing.
* [http://purl.umn.edu/107230 Oral history interview with Fernando J. Corbató] at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Corbató discusses computer science research, especially time-sharing, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), including John McCarthy and research on time-sharing.
* [http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mccarthy-john.pdf National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir]

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| title=Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science
| after=[[Biography:Richard M. Karp|Richard M. Karp]]
| years=2003
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{{Lisp programming language}}
{{ALGOL programming}}
{{Turing Award laureates}}

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[[Category:American computer scientists]]
[[Category:Artificial intelligence researchers]]
[[Category:Formal methods people]]

{{Sourceattribution|John McCarthy (computer scientist)|1}}