Artificial Intelligence Pioneer John McCarthy Dies

Artificial intelligence pioneer and Lisp programming language creator John McCarthy passed away on Monday. He was 84. A well respected computer and cognitive scientist, McCarthy is credited as coining the term "artificial intelligence" in 1955, and championed applying mathematical logic to developing early forms of it. McCarthy created the basis of the Lisp programming language in 1958, which is still in widespread use today. In addition to being the early preferred language for artificial intelligence research, Lisp was used to create Spacewar!, which is widely regarded as the first well-known computer game. McCarthy was the recipient of the highly coveted Turing Award in 1971, as well as a National Medal of Science in 1991 and a Benjamin Franklin Medal in 2003. McCarthy was a professor at Stanford from 1962 until his retirement at the end of 2000.