Nils John Nilsson (February 6, 1933 – April 23, 2019) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

computer scientist. He was one of the founding researchers in the discipline of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

. He was the first Kumagai Professor of Engineering in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

from 1991 until his retirement. He is particularly known for his contributions to

search Searching or search may refer to: Computing technology * Search algorithm, including keyword search ** :Search algorithms * Search and optimization for problem solving in artificial intelligence * Search engine technology, software for findi ...

planning Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. The evolution of forethought, the capacity to think ahead, is consi ...

knowledge representation Knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR, KR&R, KR²) is the field of artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to representing information about the world in a form that a computer system can use to solve complex tasks such as diagnosing a medic ...

, and

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

Early life and education

Nilsson was born in

Saginaw Saginaw () is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw and Saginaw County are both in the area known as Mid-Michigan. Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township and considered part of Greater ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, in 1933. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1958, and spent much of his career at

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...

, a private research lab spun off from Stanford. Nilsson served as a

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in the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

from 1958 to 1961; he was stationed at the

Rome Air Development Center Rome Laboratory (Rome Air Development Center until 1991) is the US "Air Force 'superlab' for command, control, and communications" research and development and is responsible for planning and executing the USAF science and technology program. ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

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Career

SRI International

Starting in 1966, Nilsson, along with Charles A. Rosen and

Bertram Raphael Bertram Raphael (born 1936) is an American computer scientist known for his contributions to artificial intelligence. Early life and education Raphael was born in 1936 in New York. He received his bachelor's degree in physics from the Renssela ...

, led a research team in the construction of Shakey, a robot that constructed a model of its environment from sensor data, reasoned about that environment to arrive at a plan of action, then carried that plan out by sending commands to its motors. This paradigm has been enormously influential in AI. Textbooks such as ''Introduction to Artificial Intelligence'', ''Essentials of Artificial Intelligence'', and the first edition of ''Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach'' show this influence in almost every chapter. Although the basic idea of using logical reasoning to decide on actions is due to John McCarthy, Nilsson's group was the first to embody it in a complete agent, along the way inventing the

A* search algorithm A* (pronounced "A-star") is a graph traversal and path search algorithm, which is used in many fields of computer science due to its completeness, optimality, and optimal efficiency. One major practical drawback is its O(b^d) space complexity, ...

and founding the field of automated temporal planning. In the latter pursuit, they invented the STRIPS planner, whose action representation is still the basis of many of today's planning algorithms. The subfield of automated temporal planning called ''classical planning'' is based on most of the assumptions built into STRIPS.

Stanford University

In 1985, Nilsson became a faculty member at

, in the Computer Science Department. He was chair of the department from 1985 to 1990. He was the Kumagai Professor of Engineering from the foundation of the Chair in around 1991 until his retirement, and remained Kumagai Professor Emeritus until his death. He was the fourth President of the

AAAI The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public understanding of artif ...

(1982–83) and a Founding Fellow of that organization. Nilsson wrote or coauthored several books on AI, including two that have been especially widely read - ''Principles of Artificial Intelligence'' (1982) and ''Logical Foundations of Artificial Intelligence'' (1987).

Awards and memberships

In 2011, Nilsson was inducted into

IEEE Intelligent Systems ''IEEE Intelligent Systems'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the IEEE Computer Society and sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), British Computer Society (BCS), and European As ...

' AI's Hall of Fame for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems". Press release source: ''

PRWeb Cision Ltd. is a public relations and earned media software company and services provider. The company is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois; with clients worldwide. The company went public via reverse merge ...

'' ( Vocus).

Personal life

On July 19, 1958, Nilsson married Karen Braucht, with whom he had two children. Braucht died in 1991. In 1992 he married Grace Abbott, who had four children from a previous marriage. Nilsson died on April 23, 2019, at his home in Medford,

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, at the age of 86.

Selected publications

* . * . * . * . * . * .

References

External links

Nilsson's home page
* *
Oral history interview with Nils J. Nilsson

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Nilsson gives an overview of DARPA-sponsored AI research at SRI, including his own work in robotics (especially during the period 1966-1971), research on the Computer Based Consultant, and related research on natural language and speech understanding. He describes the significance and relationship of robotics to the larger field of AI, particularly the intellectual problems it addressed and the enabling technologies it helped develop. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nilsson, Nils John 1933 births 2019 deaths American people of Swedish descent Artificial intelligence researchers Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence People from Saginaw, Michigan Presidents of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence SRI International people Stanford University alumni Stanford University School of Engineering faculty