JCR Licklider

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JCR Licklider

J. C. R. Licklider (* 11. March 1915 in St. Louis , Missouri ; † 26. June 1990 in Arlington , Massachusetts ), better known as JCR Licklider , or by his nickname "Lick", was an American Psychology - Professor . He shaped the early days of American computer science by showing new directions in hardware and software development in managerial positions. He is considered to be the founding figure of artificial intelligence , modern interaction concepts for computers, as well as time sharing and the Internet .

Life

Licklider changed subjects several times during his college days at the University of Washington because he could not choose a discipline due to his diverse interests. Among other things, he studied chemistry, physics, art and psychology. He graduated in psychology, mathematics and physics in 1937. As a doctoral student, he worked in psychoacoustics and in 1942 joined the psychoacoustic laboratory at Harvard University as a research assistant , where he conducted field experiments in B-17 and B-24 bombers to investigate the effects of great heights on speech communication and during the war years to explore static noise and other sources of interference on radio receivers. These experiments took place at altitudes of up to 35,000 feet, without a pressurized cabin and at temperatures often below freezing. During this time he became a member of the faculty and was quickly considered one of the leading theorists for the auditory system .

In 1950 Licklider moved from Harvard University to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he initially started in the acoustics department. The following year he worked in the newly established Lincoln Laboratory of MIT, which dealt with questions of air defense. Here he set up the Institute's Human Engineering Group . During the Cold War , he first worked on the implementation of the radar-based early warning system DEW Line (Distant Early Warning Line) . The necessity of processing and analyzing the numerous data from DEW Line ultimately led to the development of the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) project , the USA's computer-based air defense system. Licklider was highly regarded by his colleagues as a theorist who rarely followed abstract teachings, but thought and worked more solution-oriented than most of the other researchers at the institute, as his former colleague Bill McGill described: “He already saw the solution to a technical problem in front of you before the rest of us could even calculate it. ”The SAGE project allowed Licklider - along with other theoreticians at the institute - to see data processing from a new perspective. For him it was an early example of a machine as a partner in the human problem-solving process. He later referred to this in his fundamental work as the symbiosis between man and machine.

When a group to study the human factor was established in the psychology section of MIT's economics department in 1953 , Licklider took over the reins and took away a handful of his brightest colleagues and students from the Lincoln Lab. The group was transferred to the Social Psychologists of Labor Management at the Sloan School of Management in 1954 , but was concerned with problems entirely other than management. She worked in the then completely new field of experimental cognitive psychology and researched, for example, whether computers are suitable as models for the various cognitive abilities of humans. After the first dissertation from this department, the management of MIT wished to work in more scientifically conventional terrain. Since Licklider did not get permanent jobs for his department, his sought-after employees gradually migrated.

Licklider then opened up a new area of ​​interest: Through a rather chance encounter at the Lincoln Lab with the computer architect Wesley A. Clark , he got to know the TX-2 computer , which he had constructed in 1958. The TX-2 was one of the first computers that could display interactive graphics on a screen. Licklider was fascinated by the joint sessions with Clark, which from then on occupied an ever larger part of his time, and turned more and more away from psychology and towards computer science. He was convinced that "there is a society-changing potential in the computer", proposed theories that "home computer consoles and televisions [...] could be linked into an all-encompassing network" and foresaw a future in which most citizens would watch thanks to access Computers "are informed about, interested in and involved in political processes" because: "Really effective interaction with information via a good console and a good network to a good computer is fun, and that makes the process a sure-fire success."

Licklider left MIT and joined the acoustic and information technology company Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in 1957 . Licklider had implemented one of the first time-sharing systems on the PDP-1 , a "minicomputer" from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), which was based on the TX-0 of MIT , and Licklider provided two (of only 53 existing ) Calculator available for his personal research. Numerous leading computer scientists then followed Licklider to BBN.

Based on the research at BBN, Licklider summarized his visions in 1960 in the pioneering article Man-Computer-Symbiosis , with which he established his reputation as a computer scientist in the wider scientific community. The article received additional attention because it was written by a psychologist who four years earlier had no knowledge of computers. Licklider described the concept of a simpler interaction between humans and computers and put forward the thesis that a close coupling between humans and "the electronic links of the partnership" would ultimately lead to cooperative decision-making processes. Human decisions would be made with the help of computers, but without “inflexible dependency on pre-determined programs.” Computers should take over the tasks that they can do best, namely routine tasks, while people use the energy and time gained for better knowledge and use decisions. The partnership between man and machine would produce better problem solutions than would be possible for each of the partners alone. In addition, they would save “the most valuable postmodern resource: time.” Licklider's vision was “that in the not too distant future the human brain and data processing machine could be closely ... coupled and that the resulting partnership will think like no human brain has ever thought , and will process data in a way that today's information processing machines cannot match. "

In August 1962, Licklider described in a series of memos a global computer network (the "Galactic Network") that contained almost all of the ideas that characterize the Internet today .

1962 offered the director of the research department of the Defense Ministry, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later DARPA), Licklider in to take over the "Command and Control Research" department and build a behavioral science research department, for which he is a Q-32 of SDC to Was made available. Licklider was also guaranteed full autonomy for his research. He then switched to ARPA in October 1962 and was now able to pursue his ideas on time sharing and human-machine interaction and propagate them in government circles. At the time, the computer establishment criticized Licklider's program with the argument that time-sharing was an inefficient use of computer resources and should therefore not be pursued further.

Thanks to his generous budget, Licklider was able to hire about a dozen of the then best computer scientists from Stanford University , MIT, UCLA , Berkeley, and selected companies for his ARPA research. He jokingly referred to these researchers, with whom he communicated closely, as the "intergalactic computer network". About six months after starting his work, he distributed a statement in this unofficial body in which he criticized the proliferation of different programming languages, troubleshooting programs and documentation methods and initiated a discussion about standardization, since he saw a danger for a future computer network. He emphasized the need to “create the prerequisites for an integrated network operation”, as also existed in the human “intergalactic computer network” in terms of language, writing and communication channels.

When Licklider left ARPA in 1964, his department was called "Information Processing Techniques Office ( IPTO )" and was no longer concerned with command and control systems in the context of war scenarios, but with time-sharing systems, computer graphics and improvement of programming languages. He chose Ivan Sutherland , the world's leading expert in computer graphics, to succeed him . This in turn brought Bob Taylor from NASA to ARPA in 1965 . Taylor was like Licklider - whom he had known since 1962 - an expert in psychoacoustics and was significantly influenced by it. From 1966 Taylor took over the management of the department. The new head of ARPA, Charles M. Herzfeld , had also attended Licklider's lectures on computers and dialogue. In 1968/69 the Arpanet , the forerunner of the Internet , was created on the basis of Licklider's research .

In 1968, Licklider became director of Project MAC at MIT. This research program led to commercial time sharing and, later, networking.

In 1973, Licklider returned to DARPA as head of the IPTO and oversaw the spin-off of the Arpanets from DARPA, before moving back to MIT in 1975, where he ended his professional career.

various

Licklider insisted that everyone - including students - address him with "Lick", which was not common at the time.

Another merit of Licklider is largely unknown: if it was previously not possible to obtain a doctorate in computer science at any American university, Licklider's work established the establishment of the corresponding research base at four of the best universities in the country.

Honors

In 1953 Licklider was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1969 to the National Academy of Sciences .

In 1994, on the 25th anniversary of the Arpanet, which at that time had already been out of service for four years, the numerous participants were honored by the Clinton administration . 19 Arpanet / Internet pioneers were present and two special awards were presented. For Licklider, who died in 1990, his very old wife Louise received the special honor. The other went to Bob Kahn , the main developer of the TCP / IP protocol.

literature

  • Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider: Libraries of the Future . MIT Press, Cambridge MA 1965.
  • Michael Friedewald: Concepts of human-computer communication in the 1960s: JCR Licklider, Douglas Engelbart and the computer as an intelligence amplifier. In: Technikgeschichte 67, No. 1, 2000, pp. 1-24, abstract .
  • M. Mitchell Waldrop: The Dream Machine. JCR Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal . Viking, New York NY et al. 2001, ISBN 0-670-89976-3 , ( Sloan technology series ).
  • Walter Isaacson: The Innovators . Simon and Schuster, London a. a., 2014, ISBN 978-1-47113-879-9 .
  • Katie Haefner, Matthew Lyon: The History of the Internet , Chapter: Licklider , pp. 27–45; 2nd, corrected edition, dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg, 2000, ISBN 978-3-93258-859-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert M. Fano: Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider . In: National Academy of Sciences (Ed.): Biographical Memoirs . tape V.75 . The National Academies Press, Washington, DC 1998, ISBN 978-0-309-06295-4 ( nap.edu ).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Katie Haefner, Matthew Lyon: Die Geschichte des Internet , 2nd, corrected edition, dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg, 2000
  3. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter L. (PDF; 1.1 MB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Accessed March 15, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Licklider, JCR
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Licklider, Joseph Carl Robnett (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American psychologist and computer scientist
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Louis
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1990
Place of death Arlington, Massachusetts