The Quest for Artificial Intelligence

Book review

The Quest For Artificial Intelligence
by Nils J Nilsson
published by Cambridge University Press

Reading time: 2 mins

The name Nils J Nilsson is almost synonymous with the quest to develop machine intelligence at one of the most productive research hubs in the US, Stanford University.

Nilsson quickly established his reputation in the 1960s as a member of the team responsible for ‘Shakey’, the ground-breaking robot which captured data from sensors, then planned and executed its own routes around the laboratory.  Nilsson’s career never looked back.

Author: Nils J Nilsson

Fortunately for those of us who are relatively new to AI and data science Professor Nilsson has written a hugely informative research history.  First published in 2009, The Quest for Artificial Intelligence has become perhaps the most highly respected of the many AI histories on the market.

Nilsson captures the grand sweep of ideas, from Aristotle through to Turing and the post-war explosion of interest in thinking machines.  We learn about the people, the places, the theories and the prototypes: individuals such as Feigenbaum, Hart, McCarthy, Michie, Minsky, Newell, Rosenblatt, Samuel and Simon, the research centres of CMU, DARPA, University of Edinburgh, IBM, MIT and Nilsson’s own Stanford, plus many of the ground-breaking devices including the ALV, ELIZA, FREDDY, HEARSAY-II, PROSPECTOR and, of course, ‘Shakey’.

'Shakey' the robot

The challenge for someone as knowledgeable and well-connected as Nilsson is to tell the story of AI in a concise and captivating style, offering just enough detail to satisfy students and early career professionals, but with a compelling narrative appealing to lay readers looking for a reasonably comprehensive introduction to the field.

The result is an excellent book, accessible to anyone with a technical and mathematical mind and a passion to learn more about one of the most challenging endeavours in the history of science.

In 1956, less than 10 years after Turing’s first pronouncements on the subject, John McCarthy (credited with inventing the term ‘artificial intelligence’) proposed a research study into advanced computing at Dartmouth College, writing that “The study is to proceed on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.”

Sixty years later, McCarthy’s conjecture remains broadly unchallenged, although the quest for human level intelligence is far from complete.  When (or if) it is finally achieved, the scientists responsible will more than likely have encountered this essential book at some stage of their careers.

The Quest for Artificial Intelligence is published by Cambridge University Press and available from all major retailers.  A PDF version of this book is also available from Stanford University here: http://ai.stanford.edu/~nilsson/QAI/qai.pdf

Nils J Nilsson is currently a Professor of Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University.  He has been the distinguished recipient of many awards from scientific, engineering and academic bodies worldwide.

Writer: PJ Moar of Moar Partnerships
Email: p.moar@moar.com
Twitter: @MoarPart