Solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans
John McCarthy et al., 31 August 1955 (Stanford University (John McCarthy archive)). Proposal of 31 August 1955 by McCarthy (Dartmouth), Minsky (Harvard), Rochester (IBM) and Shannon (Bell Labs) asking the Rockefeller Foundation to fund a 2 month, 10 man study of artificial intelligence at Dartmouth
A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence
AI and science · AI and hype · Before ChatGPT
Who else?
What it refers to: One of the aims of the planned study, alongside making machines use language, form abstractions and concepts, and improve themselves.
Other voices
- “The general purpose robot, then, is a mirage” James Lighthill,
- “Think as no human brain has ever thought” J. C. R. Licklider,
- “Even the best systems available today lack anything that could be called intelligence” Emily Bender, Researcher,
- “The original robot is already in a museum” Hubert L. Dreyfus,
- “We are seeing glimpses of our AI systems starting to improve themselves” Mark Zuckerberg, Builder,










