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February 19, 2009

Weird Science in MIT's AI Lab, 1966:

I just found this photo in the Life magazine archive. It's from 1966 and entitled 'MIT student using a MAC computer for project study of artificial intelligence'.

Is it me, or does the young student bear an uncanny resemblance to Anthony Michael Hall in the 80s film Weird Science where two computer geeks use an early micro computer to programme their ideal woman in the form of the lovely Kelly LeBrock?

Unfortunately, I can't find any of the classic images of the boys at their computer creating the digital Ms LeBrock for you to compare, but here's one where you can see the uncanny MIT photo / Weird Science similarity.

So just what were MIT researching in the mid-60s?

UPDATE: We have another photo! Thanks to Daniel for suggesting this one.


Link to photo in Life archive.

—Vaughan.

Posted at February 19, 2009 11:00 PM

Comments

cornell says:

Nice find. I have a fondness for the this place. I programmed AI at NASA in the mid 80s on Symbolics LISP machines, which came out of the AI lab's work.

Comment posted at February 22, 2009 05:48 PM

Michael MacAskill says:

An even closer match for this is the character played by Anthony Edwards (later Dr Mark Greene in ER and the-other-guy in Top Gun) in "Revenge of the Nerds":

In this link, he is a dead ringer, down to the glasses and hair style:

thumbnails.hulu.com/9/986/32405_512x288_generated__+ftuFh4O2kidz03SSZGI8g.jpg

And here:

lh5.ggpht.com/hardcorebilliam/SDfPcbh4YAI/AAAAAAAAACA/OjAvfPPnOjQ/nerds%5B4%5D.jpg

he's even wearing the same shirt.

(Can't seem to insert full URL links but these should work with copy and paste.)

Cheers.

Comment posted at February 22, 2009 09:01 PM

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