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You will be remembered by your family. May you be in God's memory as well.
October 24, 2017
PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — John McCarthy, a pioneer in artificial intelligence technology and creator of the computer programming language often used in that field, has died. He was 84.
Stanford University, where McCarthy was a professor for four decades, announced McCarthy's death Monday. The school said he died at his Palo Alto home but did not provide a cause.
Tributes to McCarthy flooded into Twitter, where people mourned the loss of another Silicon Valley technology innovator. Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs and C programming creator and UNIX co-developer Dennis Ritchie died earlier this month.
McCarthy was a leader in the artificial intelligence field, coining the term in a 1955 research proposal. He said "every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it."
He went on to create the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, serving as its director from 1965 to 1980.
In 1958, McCarthy invented the programming language Lisp, which paved the way for voice recognition technology, including Siri, the personal assistant application on the newest iPhone.
McCarthy also developed the concept of computer time-sharing, which allowed multiple users to interact with a single computer. That lay the foundation for cloud computing today.
Born in Boston on Sept. 4, 1927, McCarthy moved west to pursue a degree in math at the California Institute of Technology. He received a doctorate in math from Princeton in 1951, and then became a professor at Princeton until 1953. He did turns at MIT and Dartmouth before settling at Stanford in 1962 until his retirement at the end of 2000.
"He could be blunt, but John was always kind and generous with his time, especially with students, and he was sharp until the end," said Ed Feigenbaum, professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford and a colleague recruited by McCarthy in the 1960s. "He was always focused on the future. Always inventing, inventing, inventing."
McCarthy won several awards including the A.M. Turing Award in 1971, the highest recognition in computer science, for his contributions to the artificial intelligence field. He was also honored with the Kyoto Prize in 1988 and the National Medal of Science in 1990.
He is survived by his third wife, Carolyn Talcott of Palo Alto; two daughters, Susan McCarthy of San Francisco and Sarah McCarthy of Nevada City, Calif.; a son, Timothy McCarthy of Palo Alto; a brother, Patrick, of Los Angeles; two grandchildren; and his first wife, Martha Coyote.
McCarthy's second wife, Vera Watson, died in 1978 in a mountain-climbing accident attempting to scale Annapurna in Nepal.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press
You will be remembered by your family. May you be in God's memory as well.
October 24, 2017
FAMILY,FRIENDS OF JOHN MCCARTHY.WE CAN THANK OUR CREATOR FOR OUR GREATNESS JUST THINK OF WHAT WE CAN IN PERFECION.THATS WHAT OUR WORLD WILL BE LIKE WHEN GODS KINGDOM COMES TO RULE OVER US FOREVER.PSALMS 146,147.
a streicher
November 01, 2011 | Camden, AR
God is for us a refuge and strength, A help that is readily to be found during distresses...Psalm 46:1
Beverly
October 31, 2011 | GA
May hearts soon be filled with wonderful memories of joyful times together as we celebrate a life well lived. (Eccl. 7:1)
October 31, 2011
While learning to program in LIST, I had a life-changing epiphany about AI.
Thank you John; rest in peace
Cailin
October 29, 2011 | WA
My condolences to the McCarthy family. It is good that he had the opportunity to live to be 86 years old. The scriptures says that our days are 70 years and if by special mightiness they are 80 years- Psalm 90:10. I am sure that you have many memories of him that will bring you much joy.
Marilynn
October 27, 2011 | MI
He was such a brilliant man who will forever live on in history
Kimberly Willis
October 27, 2011 | Gray, TN
May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob bring comfort to those who mourn your loss. For he is the God of all comfort.
R M
October 26, 2011 | Norcross, GA
What a brilliant mind! Thank you for the foundations for modern technology that assists those of with disabilities (multiple sclerosis in my case)--those innovations have led to many current and future applications for computers that will understand voice commands, etc.
My condolences to the entire family and friends. God Bless.
Tami Bramblett
October 26, 2011 | Independence, MO