A.I. News

Gordon Pask (1928–1996) was a British polymath, inventor, and key figure in Cybernetics, which studies how systems use information to achieve goals. Cybernetics later evolved into Artificial Intelligence.

Pask was often called a "mad scientist" due to his eccentric style and fashion sense; he always wore a double-breasted velvet jacket, bow tie, and dramatic cape. Despite this, he was a visionary ahead of his time.

In his book Micro Man, he predicted humans' growing dependence on technology, which is true today.

One of his inventions, SAKI (1956), an adaptive keyboard instructor, measured students' performance and adjusted the difficulty based on their struggles.

Pask's Conversation Theory (1970) posits that intelligence emerges from conversation. He believed a system is intelligent if it can engage in dialogue, refine responses, and build shared memory over time—similar to how large language models like ChatGPT interact with us.

Unfortunately, Pask has been overlooked in computer science literature, possibly due to Cybernetics rebranding into AI. This has made much of his work inaccessible through conventional search algorithms. Nonetheless, his intellect and creative vision were crucial in advancing artificial intelligence.