Citation
(2009), "Oliver Gordon Selfridge – artificial intelligence and computing pioneer", Kybernetes, Vol. 38 No. 3/4. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2009.06738cab.002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2009, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Oliver Gordon Selfridge – artificial intelligence and computing pioneer
Article Type: News conferences and technical reports From: Kybernetes, Volume 38, Issue 3/4
An early pioneer of artificial intelligence and computing, Oliver Selfridge, died on December 3, 2008, after a fall at his home in Belmont, Massachusetts. An obituary from the New York Times is at: www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/us/04selfridge.html. He was 82.
Of his many publications, some jointly with Marvin Minsky, that on his “Pandemonium” scheme, named to emphasize that it is best seen as operating in highly parallel fashion, is probably best known. It was delivered at a famous symposium in Teddington, UK, in 1958.
He worked in the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and besides participating in the “Project MAC” that pioneered multi-access computing he was a frequent visitor and virtual member of the group around Warren McCulloch.
He was the grandson of H. Gordon Selfridge who founded the store in Oxford Street. The family emigrated to USA at the outset of WW2.
A.M. Andrew