{"id":19764075,"url":"https://github.com/mmcguill/historical-ai","last_synced_at":"2026-03-05T00:04:18.055Z","repository":{"id":85630817,"uuid":"224335753","full_name":"mmcguill/historical-ai","owner":"mmcguill","description":"A repository to collect papers and programs of historical interest to AI. 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Mostly gathered while reading Pamela McCorduck's Machines Who Think\n\n### Must Reads\n\n- [Newell (1965) - Limitations of the Current Stock of Ideas about Problem Solving](./Papers/Newell%20(1965)%20-%20Limitations%20of%20the%20Current%20Stock%20of%20Ideas%20about%20Problem%20Solving.pdf)\n- [Minsky (1961) - Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence](Papers/Minsky%20(1961)%20-%20Steps%20Toward%20Artificial%20Intelligence.pdf)\n- [McCarthy \u0026 Hayes (1969) - Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence](./Papers/McCarthy,%20Hayes%20(1969)%20-%20Some%20Philosophical%20Problems%20from%20the%20Standpoint%20of%20Artificial%20Intelligence.pdf)\n\n## Beginnings\n\n### Turing - Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)\n[Paper](./Papers/Turing%20(1950)%20-%20Computing%20Machinery%20and%20Intelligence.pdf)\n\nTuring's seminal AI work... A nice read with a curious section about ESP!\n\n### Shannon - A Chess-Playing Machine (1950)\n[Paper](./Papers/Shannon%20(1950)%20-%20Programming%20a%20Computer%20for%20Playing%20Chess.pdf)\n\nClaude Shannon's original 1950 paper...\n\nAn article in Scientific American. Super readable...\n[Scientific American Article](./Papers/Shannon%20(1950)%20-%20A%20Chess-Playing%20Machine.pdf)\n\n### McCarthy, Minsky, Rochester, Shannon (1955) - A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence\n[Paper](Papers/McCarthy,%20Minsky,%20Rochester,%20Shannon%20(1955)%20-%20A%20Proposal%20for%20the%20Dartmouth%20Summer%20Research%20Project%20on%20Artificial%20Intelligence.pdf)\n\n### Newell, Simon \u0026 Shaw - The Logic Theory Machine (1956)\n[Paper](Papers/Newell%20\u0026%20Simon%20%281956%29%20-%20The%20Logic%20Theory%20Machine.pdf)\n\t\nProved 38 of the first 52 theorems in Russell \u0026 Whitehead's Principia Mathematica and even found a new and better proof for one.\n\nSource Code has not been transcribed and doesn't appear to be easily available.\n\n### McCarthy (1959) - Programs with Common Sense (Advice Taker)\n[Paper](Papers/McCarthy%20(1959)%20-%20Programs%20with%20Common%20Sense.pdf)\n\nEarly speculative paper on something McCarthy called the \"Advice Taker\". Possibly the first paper mentioning \"Common Sense\" in terms of AI.  Also contains an interesting discussion with Bar-Hillel and Selfridge as an appendix.\n\n## Minsky's Classic Overview (1961)\n### Minsky (1961) - Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence\n[Paper](Papers/Minsky%20(1961)%20-%20Steps%20Toward%20Artificial%20Intelligence.pdf)\n\nA sort of summary/review article covering the approaches and advances in AI at that time\n\n## GPS - General Problem Solver\n### 1958 - Newell, Simon \u0026 Shaw - Chess-Playing Programs and the Problem of Complexity\n[Paper](./Papers/Newell,%20Shaw,%20Simon%20(1958)%20-%20Chess-Playing%20Programs%20and%20the%20Problem%20of%20Complexity.pdf)\n\n### 1959 - Newell, Shaw, Simon - Report on a General Problem Solving Program\n[Paper](./Papers/Newell,%20Shaw,%20Simon%20(1959)%20-%20Report_On_A_General_Problem-Solving_Program.pdf)\n\nVery generic extension of their Logic Theory Machine, separating problem domain from the process of problem solving and introducing concepts like Means End Analysis, Planning, Goals, Sub-Goals and Differences.\n\nA more readable paper with emphasis on the comparison between how GPS works versus human subjects...\n\n### 1963 - GPS - A Program That Simulates Human Thought\n[Newell \u0026 Simon (1963) - GPS - A Program That Simulates Human Thought](./Papers/Newell%20\u0026%20Simon%20(1963)%20-%20GPS%20-%20A%20Program%20That%20Simulates%20Human%20Thought.pdf)\n\n## Roughly Chronological Highlights\n\n### Green, Wolf, Chomsky, Laughery (1961) - BASEBALL - An Automatic Question-Answerer\n[Paper](./Papers/Green,%20Wolf,%20Chomsky,%20Laughery%20(1961)%20-%20BASEBALL%20-%20An%20Automatic%20Question-Answerer.pdf)\n\nThis program could answer questions about baseball (for a specific year) specified in plain english using syntactic analysis...\n\n### Lindsay (1963) - Inferential Memory as the Basis of Machines Which Understand Natural Language (SAD SAM)\n[Paper](./Papers/Lindsay%20(1963)%20-%20Inferential%20Memory%20as%20the%20Basis%20of%20Machines%20Which%20Understand%20Natural%20Language.pdf)\n\nHardly mentioned in the paper, which is more of an early analysis (an excellent one) of the difficulties of natural language processing, is SAD SAM which was the name of the program which could examine kinship relations.\n\n### Bobrow (1964) - Natural Language Input for a Computer Problem Solving System (STUDENT)\n[Paper](./Papers/Bobrow%20(1964)%20-%20Natural%20Language%20Input%20for%20a%20Computer%20Problem%20Solving%20System.pdf)\n\nSTUDENT was a LISP program that could accept mathematical puzzles in a limited set of English, and solve them.\n\n### Evans (1964) - A Heuristic Program to Solve Geometric-Analogy Problems (ANALOGY)\n[Paper](./Papers/Evans%20(1964)%20-%20A%20Heuristic%20Program%20to%20Solve%20Geometric-Analogy%20Problems.pdf)\n\nANALOGY was a LISP program designed to solve simple Geometric Analogy problems like '''Figure A is to Figure B as Figure C is to...'''\n\n### Newell, Ernst (1965) - The Search for Generality\n[Paper](./Papers/Newell,%20Ernst%20(1965)%20-%20The%20Search%20for%20Generality.pdf)\n\n### Newell (1965) - Limitations of the Current Stock of Ideas about Problem Solving\n[Paper](./Papers/Newell%20(1965)%20-%20Limitations%20of%20the%20Current%20Stock%20of%20Ideas%20about%20Problem%20Solving.pdf)\n\nThis is magnificent. Short, concise survey of the known methods of solving problems, and an incisive look at a problem we don't know how we could go about solving/proving, and how we as humans come across the solution from 'out of nowhere'... The example problem is the 'mutilated chess board' checker problem.\n\n### Weizenbaum - ELIZA (1966)\n[Paper](./Papers/Weizenabaum%20%281966%29%20-%20ELIZA.pdf)\n\nLive version can be found here: https://www.masswerk.at/elizabot/\n\n- Javascript version: https://github.com/brandongmwong/elizabot-js\n- Python version: https://github.com/wadetb/eliza\n\nMuch more detail on all kinds of ELIZAs here: \n\n- http://elizagen.org/\n- https://github.com/jeffshrager/elizagen\n\n### McCarthy \u0026 Hayes (1969) - Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence\n[Paper](./Papers/McCarthy,%20Hayes%20(1969)%20-%20Some%20Philosophical%20Problems%20from%20the%20Standpoint%20of%20Artificial%20Intelligence.pdf)\n\nDetailed and philosophical approach to the problems of AI, trying to develop a mathematical logic approach to it. Discussion of Modal logics of the time as possibly useful.\n\n### SHRDLU - Winograd (1971)\n\nA couple of modern/ports are available on github:\n\n- https://github.com/stuartpb/shrdlu\n- https://github.com/tsgouros/www-shrdlu\n\nVery early natural language understanding system written in Lisp by Terry Winograd. The system manipulates a simple block world by accepting commands in English. The original paper/thesis is available here:\n\nhttp://hci.stanford.edu/winograd/shrdlu/AITR-235.pdf\n\n### Reddy (1974) - The HEARSAY Speech Understanding System\n[Paper](./Papers/Reddy%20(1974)%20-%20The%20HEARSAY%20Speech%20Understanding%20System.pdf)\n\nEarly speech recognition within a domain (Chess Moves)\n\n### Shortliffe (1975) - A model of inexact reasoning in medicine (The MYCIN system)\n[Paper](./Papers/Shortliffe%20(1975)%20-%20A%20model%20of%20inexact%20reasoning%20in%20medicine.pdf)\n\n### Copycat - Hofstadter \u0026 Mitchell (Fluid Analogies Research Group (FARG))\n\nA modern python port of the analogy making program Copycat can be found here:\n\nhttps://github.com/fargonauts/copycat\n\n# Fun\n### Cadwallader-Cohen (1961) - The Chaostron - An Important Advance in Learning Machines\n[Paper](./Papers/Cadwallader-Cohen%20(1961)%20-%20The%20Chaostron%20-%20An%20Important%20Advance%20in%20Learning%20Machines.pdf)\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fmmcguill%2Fhistorical-ai","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fmmcguill%2Fhistorical-ai","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fmmcguill%2Fhistorical-ai/lists"}