HERBERT A. SIMON (1916 - 2001): THE SCIENTIST OF THE ARTIFICIAL

Abstract

With the disappearance of Herbert A. Simon, we have lost one of the most original thinkers of the 20th century. Highly influential in a number of scientific fieldssome of which he actually helped create, such as artificial intelligence or information-processing psychologySimon was a true polymath. His research started in management science and political science, later encompassed operations research, statistics and economics, and finally included computer science, artificial intelligence, psychology, education, philosophy of science, biology, and the sciences of design. His often controversial ideas earned him wide scientific recognition and essentially all the top awards of the fields in which he researched, including the Turing award from the Association of Computing Machinery, with Allen Newell, in 1975, the Nobel prize in economics, in 1978, and the Gold Medal Award for Psychological Science from the American Psychological Foundation, in 1988.