Greetings to all...
Does anyone know what Dr. John McCarthy is up to these days? Is he still
at Stanford? Is he still alive? Is he still active in AI/LISP? et. al.
Thanks for any replies...
Jack (programming LISP since 1971)
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In article <························@p34.denver1.dialup.csn.net>
·······@bs2000.com (Jack Harper) writes:
>
> Does anyone know what Dr. John McCarthy is up to these days? Is he still
> at Stanford? Is he still alive? Is he still active in AI/LISP? et. al.
>
> Thanks for any replies...
>
> Jack (programming LISP since 1971)
>
I recently did some work at Stanford and passed Dr. McCarthy a few times,
this was in December 1995. Someone on campus told me he was sick, but he
looked fine to me. Also a few years ago I took a course in Non-monotonic
Reasoning from Dr. McCarthy and then later a seminar on the same subject of
which he seemed enthusiastic, so Default Reasoning is a guess as to where
his head is these days. Also these URLs were in my hot list:
http://www.stanford.edu = Stanford university home page
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc = John McCarthy home page
When I took that course I remember Dr. McCarthy in a reference to Lisp
saying "They blame me for Lisp". I wondered then if that was just one of
his humorous ways of saying something or if he had actually become
anti-Lisp. If you find out more please post.
--
William P. Vrotney - ·······@netcom.com
In article <·················@netcom.com>,
William Paul Vrotney <·······@netcom.com> wrote:
>When I took that course I remember Dr. McCarthy in a reference to Lisp
>saying "They blame me for Lisp". I wondered then if that was just one of
>his humorous ways of saying something or if he had actually become
>anti-Lisp. If you find out more please post.
I saw McCarthy speak at the University of Illinois at Chicago a few
months ago. He joked (I'll tell this as best as I can remember it)
that when companies like Symbolics started manufacturing Lisp
machines, he figured he was set for life, because no matter down on
his luck he got, he could still stand out in front of Symbolics
corporate headquarters selling pencils, and he'd do pretty well since
people would be ashamed not to buy a pencil from the guy who started
it all. But then of course the Lisp/AI boom deflated and all the
investors who'd funneled venture capital into companies like Symbolics
lost all their money. So now instead of being set for life, McCarthy
was afraid these investors would all sue him for everything he had on
the grounds that it was all his fault!
But seriously: he hasn't become anti-Lisp, but his perspective on the
current state of artificial intelligence was pretty curmudgeonly. It
was an everyone's-going-about-it-all-wrong kind of talk.
--
== Seth Tisue <·······@nwu.edu> http://www.eecs.nwu.edu/~tisue/
In article <························@p34.denver1.dialup.csn.net>,
·······@bs2000.com (Jack Harper) writes:
|> Greetings to all...
|>
|> Does anyone know what Dr. John McCarthy is up to these days? Is he still
|> at Stanford? Is he still alive? Is he still active in AI/LISP? et. al.
|>
|> Thanks for any replies...
|>
|> Jack (programming LISP since 1971)
|>
|> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
|> Jack Harper
So far as I know, John McCarthy is alive and well and still at
Stanford. If you want to find out what he's up to these days you
could check out his home page on the World Wide Web,
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc
--
George P. Campbell e-mail => ········@hercii.lasc.lockheed.com
Jack Harper (·······@bs2000.com) wrote:
: Greetings to all...
: Does anyone know what Dr. John McCarthy is up to these days? Is he still
: at Stanford? Is he still alive? Is he still active in AI/LISP? et. al.
: Thanks for any replies...
Hello everyone.
I believe that Prof. McCarthy is very much alive and very well (I don't
know if he's got a cold or anything :-) ).
Believe me, Lispers and non-Lispers around here would definitely know it
if he weren't around Stanford any more. I'm not taking any of his courses,
but to the best of my knowledge, he's active and he still likes Lisp.
Petros