Who actually coined the term artificial intelligence

John McCarthy Coined the Term in 1955

The term “artificial intelligence” was coined by computer scientist John McCarthy in a 1955 written proposal seeking funding for a summer research workshop to be held at Dartmouth College the following year. That workshop, held in 1956, is now widely regarded as the founding event of AI as a distinct field of study.

Why a New Term Was Needed

By the mid-1950s, related research on machines that could process information and mimic aspects of intelligent behavior was already underway under other names, most notably “cybernetics,” a term associated with researcher Norbert Wiener’s work on control and communication in machines and animals. McCarthy and his colleagues wanted a new term that would define a distinct research agenda, focused specifically on making machines exhibit behavior that would be considered intelligent if performed by a human, rather than being absorbed into the existing cybernetics research community and its particular set of assumptions and methods.

The Dartmouth Proposal Itself

The 1955 proposal, co-authored with Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon, laid out an ambitious and specific conjecture: that essentially every aspect of learning or intelligence could in principle be described precisely enough that a machine could be built to simulate it. This proposal both introduced the term and set out much of the intellectual ambition that would define the field for decades afterward.

Why the Dartmouth Workshop Matters Beyond the Name

While McCarthy is credited with the term itself, the workshop that followed brought together a small group of researchers who would go on to shape the field’s early direction substantially, including foundational contributions to symbolic reasoning, early programming languages for AI research, and game-playing programs. The event is remembered less for producing a single technical breakthrough during the summer itself and more for establishing AI as a recognized, named field with its own research community and agenda.

A Common Misconception Worth Clearing Up

It’s a common misconception that the term “artificial intelligence” emerged gradually or was already in wide informal use before Dartmouth — in fact, its origin is well-documented and directly traceable to McCarthy’s specific 1955 proposal, making it one of the more precisely dated coinages in the history of computer science.

Bottom Line

John McCarthy coined “artificial intelligence” in a 1955 proposal for the 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project, a deliberate choice meant to establish a distinct field separate from existing related work like cybernetics — and the workshop that followed is now recognized as the founding event of AI as a formal area of study.

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