Atlas record: https://www.aitimeline.dev/en/events/evt-0086/
Research · November 24 – 27, 1958
Programs with Common Sense
McCarthy proposed a system given knowledge as sentences of formal logic, where new behaviour comes from new sentences rather than new code.
Why it matters
Separating knowledge from the inference mechanism became the basis of every later rule-based system.
McCarthy called the hypothetical system an advice taker: you advise it rather than reprogram it. It was never fully built, but the framing led to logic programming, to expert systems, and to a long argument over whether common sense can be written down as sentences.
Event record
- Event date
- November 24, 1958 – November 27, 1958
- Timeline date
- Event date
- Verification
- Sources gathered automatically · September 17, 2026
- Lines
- ID
- evt-0086
Presented at the Teddington symposium, 24-27 November 1958; the proceedings appeared in 1959.
Related events
Earlier
Later
- Related Lisp 1960links to this record
The language gave a way to write the symbolic expressions an advice taker needs.
- Related The DENDRAL project begins 1965links to this record
The system separates domain rules from the inference mechanism.
- Related The resolution principle 1965links to this record
Resolution supplied the inference mechanism the advice taker scheme lacked.
- Contrasts Frames 1974links to this record
Knowledge is given not as logical sentences but as stereotyped situations with default values.
- Related The Cyc project begins 1984links to this record
An attempt to carry out the advice taker programme by volume: millions of written-down assertions.