Synthetic thought | Nature


Play all audios:

Access through your institution Buy or subscribe MACHINES WHO THINK: A PERSONAL INQUIRY INTO THE HISTORY AND PROSPECTS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE * _Pamela McCorduck_ A. K. Peters: 2004. 576


pp. $19.95 1568812051 | ISBN: 1-568-81205-1 For centuries humans have speculated on how the technology of the time could be used to carry out mental tasks that mimic, if not surpass, those


done by the human mind. The current incarnation of this form of hubris landed on the intellectual landscape in a legendary 1950 paper in which British computer pioneer Alan Turing laid out


the agenda for the creation of a “machine that thinks” (_Mind_ 59, 433–460). Just six years later, a summer conference at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire brought together an eclectic


group of maverick mathematicians, engineers, psychologists, computer scientists (in today's terminology), neurobiologists and other assorted denizens of the academic world. They


established a research programme in what one attendee, John McCarthy, dubbed “artificial intelligence” (AI), an evocative (and provocative) appellation by which the field has been known ever


since. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access through your institution Subscribe to this journal Receive 51 print issues and online


access $199.00 per year only $3.90 per issue Learn more Buy this article * Purchase on SpringerLink * Instant access to full article PDF Buy now Prices may be subject to local taxes which


are calculated during checkout ADDITIONAL ACCESS OPTIONS: * Log in * Learn about institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND


AFFILIATIONS * Complexica, Santa Fe, 87505, New Mexico, USA John L. Casti * Institute for Monetary Economics, Vienna, Austria John L. Casti Authors * John L. Casti View author publications


You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Casti, J. Synthetic thought. _Nature_ 427,


680 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/427680a Download citation * Issue Date: 19 February 2004 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/427680a SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link


with will be able to read this content: Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Copy to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt


content-sharing initiative