"The Thinking Machine" (1960)
A 1960 CBS TV program, produced by MIT, reveals the road to AI has been a lot longer than most people know
On October 26, 1960, the CBS TV network aired a special program, produced by CBS News in conjunction with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), titled “The Thinking Machine.”
I’ve shown clips from this program in my courses, and the students are surprised that even the term “artificial intelligence,” much less work on it, could be so old. Artificial Intelligence, as a defined academic field (and term), dates back at least to a summer conference held at Dartmouth in 1956.
My students know their parents lived in a world completely devoid of AI, and even in their childhood it didn’t seem to exist. So showing them a black-and-white documentary film that demonstrates (in an easy-to-understand manner) how a computer can write a creative movie script is eye-opening.
The film introduces the idea of computer programming, with the computer’s program being a series of contingent actions drawn from western films. Then a few scripts are printed out and dramatized. Although it’s somewhat primitive, a few surprises emerge - for example, the computer needs to “remember” (tabulate) how many times each cowboy takes a drink, in order to develop a level of inebriation that plays a role in any ensuing gunfight.
One preview (Frederick H. Guidry, “Video Focuses on MIT Men and Ideas - Films Here and on the Horizon,” Christian Science Monitor, October 19, 1960, p.6) notes a few interesting things (“he” in this clip, is Thomas Wolf, the CBS producer of the program):
Guidry notes that the show would likely “have a built-in audience of viewers whose curiousity and awareness [about computers] has been mounting over the years since Univac became a star TV performer at election time.” He’s referring to the debut of UNIVAC, the computer used for election analysis for the first time in 1952. TV viewers loved the computer spewing results on election night.
Guidry’s wry comment about how standardized and formulaic TV shows had become by 1960 is also interesting. “Some cynical set owners may insist that most of the westerns, adventure shows, and situation comedies are being turned out by machines already,” he notes.
Next year, 2026, marks the 70th anniversary of Artificial Intelligence as a defined field of applied inquiry in the academy. As this TV relic from 65 years ago illustrates, AI has been cooking a long time. It didn’t just arrive yesterday.