J.C.R. Licklider

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Image:Licklider.jpg Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (March 11, 1915 - June 26, 1990), known simply as J.C.R. or 'Lick' is one of the most important figures in computer science and general computing history. He received three undergraduate degrees (physics, math and psychology; from Washington University in St. Louis) and did his doctorate in psychoacoustics. He became interested in information technology early in his career, becoming an innovative and forward-thinking computer scientist.

Although at one time best known as the father of artificial intelligence, he was also an important figure in conceptualizing modern computer interaction concepts, and his key role in these developments is increasingly being recognized. He is credited with a major part in the development of a view of computers as general tools, rather than simply devices for performing calculations, and with initiating the thinking which led to the modern Internet. He understood the importance of both computers to mass communications and of an informed population to democracy.

One of the early results of his work was the development of time-sharing. He 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.

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Role in Early Computer Science Research

Much like Vannevar Bush, J.C.R. Licklider's contribution to the development of the Internet consists of ideas not inventions. He foresaw the need for networked computers with easy user interfaces. His ideas foretold of graphical computing, point-and -click interfaces, digital libraries, e-commerce, online banking, and software that would exist on a network and migrate to wherever it was needed. He has been called, "Computing's Johnny Appleseed," a well-deserved nickname for a man who planted the seeds of computing in the digital age.

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 has been credited as an early pioneer of cybernetics and AI [1]. Unlike many AI practitioners, Licklider never felt 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."

Licklider formulated the earliest ideas of a global computer network in August 1962 at BBN, in a series of memos discussing the "Galactic Network" concept. These ideas contained almost everything that the Internet is today.

His paper The Computer as a Communication Device, Science and Technology, April 1968, illustrates his vision of network applications.

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 had produced the first computer time-sharing system, CTSS, and one of the first online setups with the development of Multics (work on which commenced in 1964). 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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External resources

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See also

nl:Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider no:Joseph Licklider

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