Building the Second Mind: 1956 and the Origins of Artificial Intelligence Computing is a history of the origins of AI. AI, the field that seeks to do things that would be considered intelligent if a human being did them, is a universal of human thought, developed over centuries. Various efforts to carry this out appear in the forms of robotic machinery and more abstract tools and systems of symbols intended to artificially contrive knowledge. The latter sounds like alchemy, and in a sense it certainly is. There is no gold more precious than knowledge. That this is a constant historical dream, deeply rooted in the human experience, is not in doubt. However, it was not more than a dream until the machinery that could put it into effect was relatively cheap, robust, and available for ongoing experimentation.

The book tells the story of the development of the cognitive approach to psychology, computer science (software), and the development of software that undertook to do ‘intelligent’ things during mid-century. To this end, I study the early development of computing and psychology in the middle decades of the century, ideas about ‘Giant Brains’, and the formation of the field of study known as AI.

Why did this particular culture spring out of this petri dish, at this time? In addition to ‘why’, I consider the accompanying where, how, and who. This work is expository: I am concerned with the enrichment of the historical record. Notwithstanding the focus on the story, the author of necessity participates in the thematic concerns of historians of computer science. Several themes draw our attention.