Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (March 11, 1915 - June 26, 1990), known simply as J.C.R. or 'Lick', was one of the most important figures in computer science and general computing history. He is probably best known as the father of artificial intelligence but was also an important figure in conceptualizing modern computer interaction concepts and the development of time-sharing and the modern Internet. Licklider also mentored and provided funding to Douglas Engelbart, who founded the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute and created the famous oN-Line System.
In 1950, Licklider moved from the Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory at Harvard University to MIT where he served on a committee that established MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He worked on a Cold War project known as SAGE designed to create computer-based air defense systems. In 1957 he became a Vice President at BBN, where he bought the first production PDP-1 computer and conducted the first public demonstration of time-sharing.
In 1960, Licklider wrote his famous paper Man-Computer Symbiosis, which outlined the need for simpler interaction between computers and computer users. Licklider, although credited as an early pioneer of AI and cybernetics, wasn't actually thinking that men would be replaced by computer-based beings. As he wrote in that article: "Men will set the goals, formulate the hypotheses, determine the criteria, and perform the evaluations. Computing machines will do the routinizable work that must be done to prepare the way for insights and decisions in technical and scientific thinking."
The earliest ideas of a global computer network were formulated by Licklider at BBN in August 1962 in a series of memos discussing the "Galactic Network" concept. These ideas contained almost everything that the Internet is today.
In October 1962 Licklider was appointed head of the DARPA information processing office, part of the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He would then convince Ivan Sutherland, Bob Taylor, and Lawrence G. Roberts that an all-encompassing computer network was a very important concept.
In 1968, J.C.R. Licklider became director of Project MAC at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he had provided the initial funding for while at DARPA. Project MAC produced both the first computer time-sharing system, CTSS, and one of the first online setups with the development of Multics in 1965. Just as important, Multics was the direct ancestor of the Unix operating system developed at Bell Labs by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie in 1970. So many of Licklider's visions are still with us today that the effect of his ideas can scarcely be quantified, especially with the explosion of the World Wide Web and the general Internet.
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