2. Introduction
March 19, 1927 - July 19, 1992
BS, Physics (Stanford University, 1949); PhD
(Carnegie Institute of Technology, Graduate
School of Industrial Administration, 1957
US Navy (1943-45); RAND Corporation (1950-
1961); Carnegie-Mellon University (1955-
1992:graduate student, 1955-57, Professor of
Computer Science and Psychology, 1961-1992)
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3. About Newell
He did not follow his father into medicine, and
he inherited his father’s taste for research and
his broad intellectual interests
His central goal was to understand the
cognitive architecture of the human mind and
how it enabled humans to solve problems
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4. Newell and AI
In September 1954 he attended a seminar at
RAND described a running computer program
that learned to recognize letters and other
patterns.
He thought that intelligent adaptive systems
could be built which will far more complex than
anything yet done.
The idea of heuristic problem-solving impressed
him
Humans must use simplified rules—heuristics—
to guide selective searches for solutions.4
5. Contributions
THINKING-ALOUD PROTOCOLS
THE GENERAL PROBLEM SOLVER (GPS)
THE INFORMATION PROCESSING LANGUAGES
(IPLS)
PRODUCTION SYSTEM LANGUAGES (OPS5)
CHESS: THE NSS PROGRAM
HUMAN PROBLEM SOLVING
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6. Major Contributions
THINKING-ALOUD PROTOCOLS
testing a theory of human thinking
instructs subject to think aloud while performing
problem-solving tasks
A program of laboratory experimentation using
thinking-aloud methods was launched by the
beginning of 1957
a decade later Allen and Don Waterman made it the
first
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7. Major Contributions
CHESS:
He wrote "The Chess Machine: An Example of Dealing with
a Complex Task by Adaptation" (1955)
Outline of an imaginative design for a computer program
to play chess in humanoid manner
Incorporating notation of goals, aspiration levels for
terminating search, satisfying with "good enough" moves,
multidimensional evaluation functions, the generation of
sub goals to implement goals, and something like best
first search.
The design was never implemented, but ideas were later
borrowed from it for use in the NSS chess program in
1958. 7
8. Awards and Honors
1971 John Danz Lecturer, University of Washington
1971 Harry Goode Memorial Award, American Federation of
Information Processing Societies
1972 Elected to member of the United States National Academy of
Sciences
1972 Elected to Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1975 A. M. Turing Award (with Herbert A. Simon), Association for
Computing Machinery
1976-77 Guggenheim Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation
1979 Alexander C. Williams Jr. Award (with William C. Biel, Robert
Chapman and John L.Kennedy), Human Factors Society
1980 Elected to member of the United States National Academy of
Engineering
1980 First President, American Association for Artificial Intelligence8
9. Awards and Honors
1981 Charter recipient of the Computer Pioneer Award from the IEEE
Computer Society
1985 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, American Psychological
Association
1986 Doctor of Science (Honorary), University of Pennsylvania
1987 William James Lectures, Harvard University
1989 Award for Research Excellence, International Joint Conference on
Artificial Intelligence
1989 Doctor in the Behavioral and Social Sciences (Honorary), University of
Groningen, Netherlands
1989 William James Fellow Award (charter recipient), American Psychological
Society
1990 IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award
1990 IEEE W.R.G. Baker Prize Paper Award
1992 U.S. National Medal of Science
1992 The Franklin Institute’s Louis E. Levy Medal
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