Machines Who Think

Pamela McCorduck chronicles the evolution of artificial intelligence from its roots in ancient mythology and clockwork automata to the formal 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project. This history tracks how researchers like Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, and Marvin Minsky shifted from symbolic logic to computational models of human cognition. The narrative documents the competition between early laboratory paradigms, the onset of funding droughts known as AI winters, and the technical hurdles of natural language processing and expert systems. By framing intelligence as a physical property that can be replicated in machines, McCorduck provides a timeline of the shifting definitions of consciousness and mechanized thought.

This book serves computer scientists, historians, and students of cognitive science who require a foundational timeline of the field. Readers gain an understanding of how initial optimism regarding general problem solvers transitioned into specialized algorithmic applications. It provides the historical context necessary to identify patterns in technological development, helping the reader distinguish between persistent engineering challenges and philosophical debates over the nature of the artificial mind.

Outward-looking; a moderate read.

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