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Donald Michie (1923–2007) Put in Charge of an Independent Machine Father of Artificial Intelligence in Britain

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Donald Michie (1923–2007) Put in Charge of an Independent Machine Father of Artificial Intelligence in Britain NATURE|Vol 448|16 August 2007 NEWS & VIEWS peace and love and social harmony”. scientists have been established in their time and money. Its criticisms were so fierce McLaren and Michie had three children memories. as to cause a scandal. It was the only ‘internal’ together. Although they had divorced in Azim Surani and Jim Smith research-council report to be published, 1959, they remained good friends and Azim Surani and Jim Smith are at the Wellcome together with extensive rebuttals — including started to live together again in 2005. They Trust Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, nine pages from Michie. died together in a car accident on 7 July Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QN, UK. The Lighthill report stalled AI research 2007, while travelling from Cambridge to e-mails: [email protected]; in Britain for a decade. Morale and funding London. Memorial funds in support of young [email protected] reached a low ebb, with several prominent researchers fleeing to the United States. Michie was also sidelined at Edinburgh: a new Department of Artificial Intelligence was formed and inherited most of its predecessor’s resources, whereas Michie was Donald Michie (1923–2007) put in charge of an independent Machine Father of artificial intelligence in Britain. Intelligence Research Unit, and forbidden to work on robotics. Research in AI was officially rehabilitated Donald Michie was a man of many parts, virtually single-handed. ten years later, when in 1982 Japan launched irrepressible energy and great personal His first task was to overcome what he later its ‘Fifth Generation project’, a huge financial charisma. His first significant scientific called “the national computer-blindness”. and industrial commitment to base its future contribution came in the field of genetics. Even Britain’s science minister in the early economy on AI, predicting world supremacy With his second wife Anne McLaren, tragically 1960s knew nothing of the wartime code- as a result. The response, in Britain as in the killed in the same car accident in which he busting efforts, and thought that ‘computing’ United States, was an injection of government died, he published research in the 1950s meant desk calculators. funds into both military and civilian AI that helped lay the groundwork During his relentless lobbying, research. Michie’s urbane comment was for modern reproductive Michie persuaded the Royal that the Lighthill incident had been a technology, and later Society to provide “a few “mishap of scientific politics” due to all-too- earned him a Pioneer hundred pounds” to human frailties — specifically, “nothing but Award, with enable him, with ignorance at the top”. McLaren, from Bernard Meltzer, Michie’s contributions to the theory of the International to set up a small AI began in the 1960s, when a colleague Embryo Transfer AI research group had insisted that learning machines were Society. But even at the University impossible, and had challenged Michie to while developing of Edinburgh in prove him wrong. Edinburgh still lacked those ideas, he 1963. Its existence a digital computer, and so Michie built “a became inspired by a was made official contraption of matchboxes and glass beads” very different scientific as the Experimental to master the art of noughts and crosses passion: intelligent machines. Programming Unit in 1965, (tic-tac-toe). He called it the Matchbox He had first encountered this and in 1967 it became the Department Educable Noughts And Crosses Engine, or revolutionary idea in the company of Alan of Machine Intelligence and Perception. MENACE. He followed that in 1968 with the Turing at Britain’s code-breaking centre, Right from the start, the department received first reinforcement-learning program, the ‘pole Bletchley Park, during the Second World frequent visits from AI pioneers in the United balancer’, involving a pole balancing on a cart. War. The two did not cooperate closely, States based at the Massachusetts Institute This was no simulation, but controlled a real for whereas Turing was busy breaking the of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University pole balanced on a real cart. In the 1970s, he Enigma codes, Michie focused on using and Stanford University. Its successor is still a capped this with research into chess endgames. the Colossus computer to crack messages leading centre in the field. Michie’s pioneering Graph Traverser of the generated by the Germans’ ‘Tunny’ Those early years were not free of 1960s provided ideas that are now standard teleprinter machines. They became friends problems. The initial offer of a deconsecrated in heuristic search algorithms, and live on nonetheless, and regularly played chess. They church as lab space was withdrawn when in widely used AI planning techniques. His often discussed the possibility of intelligent Michie’s intention to build an intelligent last important contribution was his StatLog machines that could play in their stead — and robot became known. But he remained project of the early 1990s, a highly insightful do mathematics, use language, interpret indefatigable, and in the ensuing years fought comparison of various models for learning photographic input, learn, and even (Turing lustily for the infant discipline, confronting algorithms, from statistical approaches suggested) wander around the countryside academia, research councils and industry. through symbolic tree-building to dynamical unaided. He also did much to raise the profile of AI systems. This shared vision of artificial intelligence with the general public, holding popular From his long career, Donald Michie has left (AI) became Michie’s guiding principle, lectures and penning one-off articles for the a generous academic legacy: the establishment and by 1948 he was writing a paper-and- press, as well as a regular column for the trade of AI in Britain. That was a product of his pencil chess program in his spare time. As magazine Computer Weekly. mercurial intelligence, but those who knew he said years later, recalling how Turing’s Sometimes his optimism and enthusiasm, him personally will also remember his wide speculations had gripped him, “I resolved to for instance in describing the achievements learning, his wit and his charm. make artificial intelligence my life as soon and potential of the Edinburgh robot, went Margaret Boden as it became feasible”. He himself helped too far, and prompted a backlash from Margaret Boden is in the Department of to do that, not only intellectually, but also sceptics and rivals. One result was the Informatics, School of Cognitive and Computing commercially, writing the first marketable UK Science Research Council’s notorious Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton ‘expert-system shell’ for logic programming Lighthill report of 1973, which in effect BN1 9QJ, UK. in the 1960s. In Britain, he founded AI pronounced research in AI to be a waste of e-mail: [email protected] 765.
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