All about Herbert Simon Father of Artificial Intelligence.
                     ALL ABOUT HERBERT 
SIMON: FATHER OF 
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Introduction
• Herbert A. Simon was one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence. Simon, who, 
along with Allen Newell and J.C. Shaw, wrote the first AI program in 1956, received many 
honors in his lifetime, including the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1978. 
Source: ieeexplore.ieee.org
Early Life
• Herbert Alexander Simon was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 15, 1916, to Edna 
and Arthur Simon. 
• Simon’s father worked for the Cutler-Hammer manufacturing company helping to design 
control devices. 
Source: ieeexplore.ieee.org
Education
• Simon graduated from the University of 
Chicago in 1936 and earned a doctorate in 
political science there in 1943. 
• In 1936, a term-paper project stimulated his 
interest in decision-making in organizations. 
Source: ieeexplore.ieee.org
Early and Middle Career
• After receiving his doctorate in 1942, Simon 
joined the political science faculty of the 
Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. 
• After holding various posts in political 
science, he became a professor of 
administration and psychology at the 
Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949, 
later becoming the Richard King Mellon 
University Professor of Computer Science 
and Psychology there.
Source: www.encyclopedia.com
Later Career
• Simon extended his ideas about intelligence as a formalistic problem-solving procedure 
guided by heuristic learning rules to the philosophy of science. 
• Scientific discovery, he maintained, being a cognitive problem-solving process, could be 
modeled by computer programs. Beginning in the 1960s he repeatedly published on this 
theme.
Source: www.encyclopedia.com
Administrative Theory
• His approach to the study of administrative 
behavior had philosophical roots. Simon 
modeled the company or organization itself as 
a network of cooperating, boundedly rational 
decision makers. 
• He rejected the classical view that a company 
can be effectively treated as omniscient, 
perfectly rational, and profit-maximizing.
Source: www.encyclopedia.com
Contributions to AI and Cognitive Psychology
• In 1955, Simon and Newell realized that 
before they could build an intelligent 
machine, they would need to invent an 
appropriate programming language.
• In 1956, using the new programming 
tools, Simon and Newell wrote Logic 
Theorist, a computer program designed to 
discover proofs for theorems in symbolic 
logic. 
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Working on GPS
• Newell and Simon moved on to a new, more ambitious project, General Problem Solver 
(GPS). Working on GPS allowed Newell and Simon to develop their view of physical 
symbol systems. 
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AI research
• Newell and Simon's formalist view has shaped one of the two basic approaches in AI 
research for over half a century. 
• Due to the slow progress of symbolic AI in the many years since Logic Theorist's success, 
the AI trend in the 1990s and 2000s has been toward the neural-network or 
connectionist approach.
Source: www.encyclopedia.com
Achievements
• Later in his career, Simon pursued means of 
creating artificial intelligence through 
computer technology. He wrote several 
books on computers, economics, and 
management, and in 1986 he won the U.S. 
National Medal of Science.
Source: www.encyclopedia.com