Nils Nilsson (computer scientist)

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Group photo of the Shakey team, Nilsson is fifth from the left (2017)

Nils John Nilsson (born February 6, 1933 in Saginaw , Michigan - † April 23, 2019 in Medford , Oregon ) was an American computer scientist . He is considered one of the pioneers in artificial intelligence and robotics .

Nilsson received his PhD from Stanford University in 1958 with Willis Harman ( An Application of the Theory of Games to Radar Reception Problems ). He then spent 23 years at the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International . From 1985 to 1990 he was a professor at Stanford and head of the computer science faculty. He last lived in Oregon.

At SRI International he dealt with access to pattern recognition via statistical methods and neural networks and was one of the leading scientists in the influential SHAKEY AI project on mobile, preferably autonomous robots and related technology. The project funded by DARPA existed from 1966 to 1972 with Charles Rosen as project manager. In addition to Nilsson, Bertram Raphael , Richard Duda , Peter Hart , Richard Fikes , Richard Waldinger were involved. The project included the heuristic search algorithm A * and the automatic planning system STRIPS , in which Nilsson was involved (other results were the visibility graph and the Hough transformation in image processing). The programming was done in Lisp .

He later continued research into robots that respond flexibly to a dynamic environment, action plans and learning from experience.

Shakey

In 2003 he received the IJCAI Award for Research Excellence and received the IEEE Neural Network Pioneer Award.

He served on the editorial boards of Artificial Intelligence and the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research . He was the author of several textbooks on artificial intelligence and a book on the history of AI.

He was a Fellow of the AAAI and its former President and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Engineering Academy . In 2018 Nilsson was elected to the National Academy of Engineering .

Fonts

Books:

  • Learning Machines: Foundations of Trainable Pattern-Classifying Systems, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965.
    • Reprinted as: The Mathematical Foundations of Learning Machines, San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 1990
  • Problem-Solving Methods in Artificial Intelligence, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971.
  • Principles of Artificial Intelligence, San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 1980.
  • with B. Webber (Ed.): Readings in Artificial Intelligence, San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 1981.
  • with M. Genesereth: Logical Foundations of Artificial Intelligence, San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 1987.
  • Artificial Intelligence: A New Synthesis, San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 1998
  • The quest for artificial intelligence. A history of ideas and achievements, Cambridge UP 2010
  • Understanding beliefs, MIT Press 2014

Some essays:

  • with B. Raphael: Preliminary Design of an Intelligent Robot, in JT Tou (Ed.), Computer and Information Sciences II, Academic Press 1967, pp. 235-259
  • with Michael Arbib , G. Franklin: Some Ideas on Information Processing in the Cerebellum, in: ER Caianiello (Ed.), Neuronal Networks, Springer 1968, pp. 43-58
  • Adaptive Pattern Recognition: A Survey, in: Cybernetic Problems in Bionics, New York: Gordon and Breach 1968.
  • with P. Hart, B. Raphael: A Formal Basis for the Heuristic Determination of Minimum Cost Paths, IEEE Trans. Syst. Science and Cybernetics, SSC-4, 1968, pp. 100-107, correction in SIGART Newsletter, No. 37, December 1972, pp. 28-29
  • with R. Fikes: STRIPS: A New Approach to the Application of Theorem Proving to Problem Solving, Artificial Intelligence, Volume 2, 1971, pp. 189-208
  • with DC Luckham: Extracting Information from Resolution Proof Trees, Artificial Intelligence, Volume 2, 1971, pp. 27-54
  • with R. Fikes, P. Hart; Learning and Executing Generalized Robot Plans, Artificial Intelligence, Volume 3, 1972, pp. 251-288
  • with R. Fikes, P. Hart: Some New Directions in Robot Problem Solving, in Meltzer, Michie (Ed.), Machine Intelligence 7, Edinburgh UP 1972, pp. 405-430
  • A Production System for Automatic Deduction, in Elcock, Michie, Machine Intelligence 9, Edinburgh UP 1979
  • The Interplay Between Experimental and Theoretical Methods in Artificial Intelligence, Cognition and Brain Theory, January 1981
  • Probabilistic Logic, Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 28, 1986, pp. 71-87
  • Logic and Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Volume 47, 1991, pp. 31-56
  • Probabilistic Logic Revisited, Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 59, 1993, pp. 39-42.
  • with R. Fikes: STRIPS: A Retrospective, Artificial Intelligence, Volume 59, 1993, pp. 227-232
  • Teleo-Reactive Programs for Agent Control, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Volume 1, 1994, pp. 139-158
  • with S. Benson: Reacting, Planning and Learning in an Autonomous Agent, in Michie u. a. Machine Intelligence 14, Clarendon Press 1995

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nils Nilsson in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English) Template: MathGenealogyProject / Maintenance / id used.
personal data
SURNAME Nilsson, Nils
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nilsson, Nils John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer scientist
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Saginaw , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 2019
Place of death Medford