Pamela McCorduck: Machines Who Think and the Early Days of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #34

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   The following is a…

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Pamela McCorduck. She's an author who has written on the history and the philosophical significance of artificial intelligence. Her books include Machines Who Think in 1979, The Fifth Generation in 1983 with Ed Feigenbaum, who's considered to be the father of expert systems, The Edge of Chaos, The Futures of Women, and many more books. I came across her work in an unusual way, by stumbling on a quote from Machines Who Think that is something like, "Artificial intelligence began with the ancient wish to forge the gods." That was a beautiful way to draw a connecting line between our societal relationship with AI, from the grounded day-to-day science, math and engineering, to popular stories and science fiction and myths of automatons that go back for centuries. Through her literary work, she has spent a lot of time with the seminal figures of artificial intelligence, including the founding fathers of AI from the 1956 Dartmouth summer workshop where the field was launched. I reached out to Pamela for a conversation in hopes of getting a sense of what those early days were like, and how their dreams continue to reverberate through the work of our community today. I often don't know where the conversation may take us, but I jump in and see. Having no constraints, rules or goals is a wonderful way to discover new ideas. This is the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it five stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman, spelled F-R-I-D-M-A-N. And now, here's my conversation with Pamela McCorduck. In 1979, your book, Machines Who Think was published. In it, you interview some of the early AI pioneers and explore the idea that AI was born not out of maybe math and computer science, but out of myth and legend.

   2. PMPamela McCorduck2:08

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman2:09

      (laughs) So, uh, tell me if you could the story of how you first arrived at the book, the journey of-

   4. PMPamela McCorduck2:16

      Oh.

   5. LFLex Fridman2:17

      ... beginning to write it.

   6. PMPamela McCorduck2:20

      I had been a novelist. I'd published two novels. And I was sitting, uh, under, uh, the portal at Stanford one day in the house we were renting for the summer, and I thought, "I should write a novel about these weird people in AI I know." And then I thought, "Ah, don't write a novel. Write a history. Simple. Just go around, you know, interview them, splice it together. Voila, instant book. Ha, ha, ha." It was much harder than that. (laughs) But nobody else was doing it. And so I thought, "Well, this is a great opportunity." And there were people who, uh, John McCarthy for example, thought it was a nutty idea. There were much... You know, the field had not evolved yet, so on. And he had some mathematical thing he thought I should write instead. And I said, "No, John. I am not a woman in search of a project. I'm... This is what I want to do. I hope you'll cooperate." And he said, "Oh, mutter mutter. Well, okay. It's your, your time." And-

   7. LFLex Fridman3:25

      What was the pitch for the... I mean, such a young field at that point. How do you write a personal history of a field that's so young?

   8. PMPamela McCorduck3:34

      I said, "This is wonderful. The founders of the field are alive and kicking and able to talk about what they're doing."

   9. LFLex Fridman3:41

      Did they sound or feel like founders at the time? Did they know that they've been found- that they had founded something?

   10. PMPamela McCorduck3:48

       Oh, yeah. They knew what they were doing was very important, very. What they... Uh, what I now see in retrospect is that they were at the height of their research careers. And it's humbling to me that they took time out from all the things that they had to do as a consequence of being there, and to talk to this woman who said, "I think I'm going to write a book about you." (laughs) No, it was amazing, just amazing.

   11. LFLex Fridman4:17

       So who, who stands out to you, uh, maybe looking 63 years ago at the Dartmouth conference? The, so Marvin Minsky was there, McCarthy was there, Claude Shannon, Allen Newell, Herb Simon, some of the folks you've mentioned.

   12. PMPamela McCorduck4:34

       Right.

   13. LFLex Fridman4:35

       Um, then there's the other characters, right? Um, the one, one of your co-authors.

   14. PMPamela McCorduck4:40

       (laughs)

   15. LFLex Fridman4:41

       Uh, uh, uh-

   16. PMPamela McCorduck4:42

       He wasn't at Dartmouth.

   17. LFLex Fridman4:43

       He wasn't at Dartmouth.

   18. PMPamela McCorduck4:44

       No.

   19. LFLex Fridman4:44

       But I mean, in general.

   20. PMPamela McCorduck4:44

       He was, I think an undergraduate then.

   21. LFLex Fridman4:47

       (laughs) And, uh, and of course Joe Traub. I mean, all of these are players, not at Dartmouth, but, uh, in that era.

   22. PMPamela McCorduck4:56

       Right.

   23. LFLex Fridman4:56

       Uh, and C- CMU and so on. So who are the characters, if you could paint a picture, that stand out to you from memory? Those people you've interviewed and maybe not, people that were just in the...

   24. PMPamela McCorduck5:08

       In the am- the atmosphere.

   25. LFLex Fridman5:10

       In the atmosphere.

   26. PMPamela McCorduck5:11

       Uh, of course the four founding fathers were extraordinary guys. They really were.

   27. LFLex Fridman5:16

       Who are the founding fathers?

   28. PMPamela McCorduck5:18

       Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy. They were the four who were not only at the Dartmouth conference, but Newell and Simon arrived there with a working program, uh, called the Logic Theorist. Everybody else had great ideas about how they might do it, but they weren't gonna do it yet. Um, and you mentioned Joe Traub, my husband. I, I was immersed in AI before I met Joe, because I had been Ed Feigenbaum's assistant at Stanford. And before that, I had worked on a book by, edited by Feigenbaum and Julian Feldman called...... Computers and Thought. It was the first textbook of readings of AI. And they, they only did it because they were trying to teach AI to people at Berkeley, and there was nothing... You know, you'd have to send them to this journal and that journal. This was not the internet where you could go look at a, an article. So I was fascinated from the get-go by AI. I was an En- English major, you know, what did I know? And, uh, yet I was fascinated. And that's why you saw that historical, that literary background, which I, I think is very much a part of the continuum of AI. That, uh, that AI grew out of that same impulse.

   29. LFLex Fridman6:45

       Was that, yeah, that traditional. What, what was, what drew you to AI? How did you even think of it back, back then?

   30. PMPamela McCorduck6:53

       (laughs)
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Maybe you can speak…

   1. PMPamela McCorduck15:00

      uh, we, we do fear this, and we have good reason to fear it, but... because it can get out of hand.

   2. LFLex Fridman15:07

      Maybe you can speak to that fear, the, the psychology, if you've thought about it. You know, there's a practical set of fears, concerns in the short term. You can think of... if we actually think about artificial intelligence systems, you could think about bias of discrimination in algorithms or you, you can, um, think about, uh, their social networks have algorithms that recommend the content you see. Thereby these algorithms control the behavior of the masses. There's these concerns. But it... to me, it feels like the fear that people have is deeper than that. So have you thought about the psychology of it?

   3. PMPamela McCorduck15:47

      I think in a, a superficial way, I have. There is this notion that if we produce a machine that can think, it will outthink us and therefore replace us.

   4. LFLex Fridman16:02

      I guess that's a, that's a primal fear of-

   5. PMPamela McCorduck16:04

      Yes, it is.

   6. LFLex Fridman16:04

      ... almost a... or almost kind of a, a kind of mortality. So around the time... you said you worked with, um, uh, at Stanford with, uh, Ed Feigenbaum.

   7. PMPamela McCorduck16:17

      Mm-hmm.

   8. LFLex Fridman16:18

      So let's look at that one person throughout his history, clearly a key person, one of the many i- in the history of AI. How has he changed, uh, in general ar- around him? How has Stanford changed in the last... how many years are we talking about here?

   9. PMPamela McCorduck16:36

      Oh, since-

   10. LFLex Fridman16:37

       Decade.

   11. PMPamela McCorduck16:37

       ... '65.

   12. LFLex Fridman16:38

       Si- '65. So I mean, it doesn't have to be about him, it could be, uh, bigger, but... because he was a key person in expert systems for example. How is that... how are these folks who you've interviewed in, uh, the '70s, '79 changed through the decades?

   13. PMPamela McCorduck17:03

       In Ed's case, I, uh, I know him well. We are dear friends. We see each other every month or so. He told me that when Machines Who Think first came out, he really thought all the front matter was kind of baloney.

   14. LFLex Fridman17:18

       Mm-hmm.

   15. PMPamela McCorduck17:19

       And 10 years later, he said, "No, I see what you're getting at."

   16. LFLex Fridman17:25

       (laughs)

   17. PMPamela McCorduck17:25

       "Yes, this is an impulse that has been... this has been a human impulse for thousands of years to create something outside the human cranium that has intelligence." Uh, I think it's very hard when you're down at the algorithmic level and you're just trying to make something work, (laughs) which is hard enough, to s- step back and think of the big picture. It reminds me of, um, when I was in Santa Fe, I knew a lot of archeologists, which was a hobby of mine, and I would say, "Yeah, yeah. Well, you can look at the shards and say, 'Oh, this came from this tribe and this came from this trade route and so on,' but what about the big picture?" And a very distinguished archeologist said to me-... they don't think that way. You, you... No, they're, they're trying to match the shard to the, to where it came from. That's, you know, where did this corn, uh, remainder of this corn come from? Was it grown here? Was it grown elsewhere? And I think this is part of the AI, uh, any scientific field. Uh, you're so busy doing the, the hard work, and it is hard work, that you don't step back and say, "Oh, well, now let's talk about the, you know, mm-hmm, the general-"

   18. LFLex Fridman18:52

       The big picture, yeah.

   19. PMPamela McCorduck18:52

       "... meaning of all this." Yes. (laughs)

   20. LFLex Fridman18:53

       Yeah, so none, none of the even Minsky and McCarthy, they, th- the-

   21. PMPamela McCorduck18:59

       Oh, those guys did. Yeah, the Founding Fathers did.

   22. LFLex Fridman19:02

       Early on or later?

   23. PMPamela McCorduck19:03

       Pretty early on. Oh, they had, but, uh, f- in a different way from how I looked at it. The two cognitive psychologists, Newell and Simon, they wanted to imagine reforming cognitive psychology so that we would really, really understand the brain.

   24. LFLex Fridman19:23

       Yeah.

   25. PMPamela McCorduck19:25

       Minsky was more speculative. And John McCarthy saw it as, I think I'm doing, doing him right by this, he really saw it as a great boon for human beings to have this technology, and that was reason enough to do it. Uh, and he had wonderful, wonderful fables about how, if you do the mathematics, you will see that these things are really good for human beings. And if you had a technological objection, he had an answer, a technological answer, but here's how we could get over that, and then blah, blah, blah, blah. And one of his favorite things was what he called the literary problem, which, of course, he presented to me several times. That is, everything in literature, there are conventions in literature. One of the conventions is that you have, uh, a villain and, uh, a hero. And the hero, in most literature, is human, and the villain, in most literature, is a machine. And he said, "No, that's just not the way it's gonna be," but that's the way we're used to it. So when we tell stories about AI, it's always with this paradigm. And I thought, "Yeah, he's right." You know, looking back, uh, in the classics, RUR is certainly the machines trying to o- overthrow the humans. Frankenstein is different. Frankenstein is a creature. He never, he never has a name. Frankenstein, of course, is the guy who created him, the human, Dr. Frankenstein. This creature wants to be loved, wants to be accepted, and it is only when Frankenstein turns his head, in fact, runs the other way, and the creature is without love that he becomes, um, the monster that he later becomes.

   26. LFLex Fridman21:40

       So who's the villain in Frankenstein? It's unclear, right? That's, uh-

   27. PMPamela McCorduck21:44

       Oh, it is unclear, yeah.

   28. LFLex Fridman21:45

       It's really the people who drive him-

   29. PMPamela McCorduck21:49

       Yeah.

   30. LFLex Fridman21:49

       By driving him away-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. LFLex Fridman30:00

      AI, if you dream of the possibilities of AI, is really expert systems.

   2. PMPamela McCorduck30:04

      Mm-hmm.

   3. LFLex Fridman30:05

      And those hit a few walls and, uh, there was challenges there. And I think, yes, they will reemerge again with some new breakthroughs and so on. But what did that feel like, both the possibility and the winter that followed, the slowdown in research?

   4. PMPamela McCorduck30:21

      Ah, you know, this whole thing about AI winter is, to me, a crock.

   5. LFLex Fridman30:26

      Snowy winters.

   6. PMPamela McCorduck30:27

      (laughs) ... because I look at the basic research that was being done in the '80s, which is supposed to be... My God, it was really important. It was laying down things that nobody had thought about before. But it was basic research. You couldn't monetize it.

   7. LFLex Fridman30:43

      Right.

   8. PMPamela McCorduck30:44

      Hence, the winter.

   9. LFLex Fridman30:45

      Hence, the winter.

   10. PMPamela McCorduck30:47

       Uh, you know, research, scientific research goes in fits and starts. It isn't this nice, smooth, "Oh, this follows this, follows this." No. Uh, you know, it just doesn't work that way.

   11. LFLex Fridman30:59

       The, the interesting thing, the way winters happen, it's never the fault of the researchers. It's the, it's the h- the some source of hype, over-promising. Well, no, let me take that back. Sometimes it is the fault of the researchers. (laughs) Sometimes, certain researchers might over-promise the possibilities they themselves believe-

   12. PMPamela McCorduck31:19

       Mm-hmm.

   13. LFLex Fridman31:20

       ... that we're just a few years away, that have... Just recently talked to Elon Musk, and he believes he'll have an autonomous vehic- we'll have autonomous vehicles in a year. I, and he believes it.

   14. PMPamela McCorduck31:30

       A year?

   15. LFLex Fridman31:31

       A year, yeah. We'll have mass deployment of autonomous-

   16. PMPamela McCorduck31:33

       Uh, for the record, this is 2019 right now.

   17. LFLex Fridman31:37

       Yeah.

   18. PMPamela McCorduck31:37

       So he's talking 2020.

   19. LFLex Fridman31:39

       To do the impossible, you really have to believe it.

   20. PMPamela McCorduck31:42

       Hmm.

   21. LFLex Fridman31:43

       And I think what's going to happen when you believe it, 'cause there's a lot of really brilliant people around him, is some good stuff will come out of it. Some unexpected brilliant breakthroughs will come out of it when you really believe it, when you work that hard.

   22. PMPamela McCorduck31:56

       Yeah.

   23. LFLex Fridman31:56

       But-

   24. PMPamela McCorduck31:57

       I believe that, and I believe autonomous vehicles will come. I just don't believe-

   25. LFLex Fridman32:00

       (laughs)

   26. PMPamela McCorduck32:01

       ... it'll be in a year.

   27. LFLex Fridman32:02

       In a year.

   28. PMPamela McCorduck32:02

       I wish.

   29. LFLex Fridman32:03

       But nevertheless, there is, autonomous vehicles is a good example. There's a feeling, many companies have promised by 2021, by 2022, Ford, GM, uh, basically, every single automotive company has promised they'll have autonomous vehicles. So that kind of over-promise is what leads to the winter, because w- we'll come to those dates, there won't be autonomous vehicles, and there'll be a feeling, "Well, wait a minute. If we took your word at that time, that means we just spent billions of dollars, had made no money," and there's a counter-response to where everybody gives up on it. Sort of intellectually a- at every level, the hope just dies, and all that's left is a few basic researchers. So you're uncomfortable with some aspects of this, this idea?

   30. PMPamela McCorduck32:55

       Well, it's, it's the difference between science and commerce.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm. …

   1. LFLex Fridman45:00

      to try to predict, but to speak to the, you know, I'm sure in the '60s, as it continues now, there's people that think, let's call it, we can call it this fun word, the singularity.

   2. PMPamela McCorduck45:12

      Mm.

   3. LFLex Fridman45:13

      When there's a phase shift, there's some profound feeling where we're all really surprised by what's able to be achieved. I'm sure those dreams are there. I remember reading quotes in the '60s and those continued.

   4. PMPamela McCorduck45:27

      Sure.

   5. LFLex Fridman45:27

      How have your own views, maybe, if you look back, about the timeline of a singularity changed?

   6. PMPamela McCorduck45:37

      Well, um, I'm not a big fan of the singularity as Ray Kurzweil has presented it.

   7. LFLex Fridman45:46

      How would you define the Ray Kurzweil, sort of how would you-

   8. PMPamela McCorduck45:50

      Well, uh-

   9. LFLex Fridman45:50

      ... how do you think of singularity in those, in...

   10. PMPamela McCorduck45:53

       If I understand Kurzweil's view, it's sort of, there's gonna be this moment when machines are smarter than humans, and, you know, game, game over. However, the game over is. I mean, do they put us on a reservation? Do they... et cetera, et cetera. And first of all, machines are smarter than humans in some ways all over the place.

   11. LFLex Fridman46:19

       Yeah.

   12. PMPamela McCorduck46:19

       And they have been since adding machines were invented. So it's not, it's not gonna come, like, some great Oedipal crossroads, you know, where they meet each other and our offspring, Oedipus, says, "You're dead." (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman46:36

       Yeah.

   14. PMPamela McCorduck46:36

       It's just not gonna happen.

   15. LFLex Fridman46:38

       Yeah, so it's already game over with calculators, right? Uh, (laughs) they're already out, uh, do much better at, uh, basic arithmetic than us. But, you know, there's, um, human-like intelligence.

   16. PMPamela McCorduck46:51

       Mm.

   17. LFLex Fridman46:52

       And t- that's not the ones that destroy us, but, you know, somebody that you can have as a f- as a friend-

   18. PMPamela McCorduck46:58

       Oh. (laughs)

   19. LFLex Fridman46:59

       ... who you can have deep connections with, that kind of passing the Turing test and beyond.

   20. PMPamela McCorduck47:03

       Mm.

   21. LFLex Fridman47:04

       Th- those kinds of ideas. Have you dreamt of those-

   22. PMPamela McCorduck47:07

       Oh, yes. Yes, yes.

   23. LFLex Fridman47:09

       ... those possibilities?

   24. PMPamela McCorduck47:10

       Uh, in a book I wrote with Ed Feigenbaum, there's a little story called The Geriatric Robot.

   25. LFLex Fridman47:17

       Okay.

   26. PMPamela McCorduck47:17

       And how I came up with the geriatric robot is a story in itself. But here's, here's what the geriatric robot does. It doesn't just clean you up and feed you and wheel you out into the sun. Its great advantage is it listens. It says, "Tell me again about the great coup of '73."

   27. LFLex Fridman47:43

       Yeah.

   28. PMPamela McCorduck47:43

       "Tell me again about how awful or how wonderful your grandchildren are," and so on and so forth. And it isn't hanging around to inherit your money. It isn't hanging around 'cause it can't get any other job. This is its job.

   29. LFLex Fridman48:01

       Yeah.

   30. PMPamela McCorduck48:02

       And so on and so forth.

Episode duration: 1:00:06