# Pamela McCorduck **Entity class:** Person / historian of artificial intelligence **Domain:** Artificial intelligence / intellectual history **Doc Type:** Developed Person Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Pamela McCorduck** (1940–2021) was an American writer and historian whose _Machines Who Think_ (1979; expanded 2004) placed artificial intelligence inside an ancient human wish to construct intelligent beings. She worked close to the field's builders, helped assemble Feigenbaum and Feldman's _Computers and Thought_ (1963), and later co-wrote _The Fifth Generation_ (1983) with [[wiki/Edward Feigenbaum|Edward Feigenbaum]]. ## Project X Context McCorduck supplies a scholarly precedent for the deep temporal reach of [[articles/A History of Machine Intelligence|A History of Machine Intelligence]]. Her contribution is the recognition that artificial intelligence has a cultural and technical prehistory extending through automata, artificial beings, and mechanized reason. The Project X synthesis extends that long memory into a test of transmitted purpose, institutional continuity, substrate, and state mission. ## Evidence Ledger - **Established:** _Machines Who Think_ traces the wish to construct intelligence across myth, craft, and modern AI. - **Established:** McCorduck participated in the field's documentary and policy-facing literature with Feigenbaum. - **Strongly indicated:** Her position inside the community gave her historical synthesis both archival reach and participant knowledge. - **Unresolved:** The degree to which _The Fifth Generation_ directly shaped specific U.S. program decisions; promotion requires policy memoranda or testimony citing the book. ## Sources / Provenance - Pamela McCorduck, [_Machines Who Think_, second edition (2004)](https://www.routledge.com/Machines-Who-Think-A-Personal-Inquiry-into-the-History-and-Prospects-of-Artificial-Intelligence/McCorduck/p/book/9781568812052). - [[articles/A History of Machine Intelligence|A History of Machine Intelligence]]. ## Relationships - **Co-authored with:** [[wiki/Edward Feigenbaum|Edward Feigenbaum]]. - **Supports:** [[wiki/Machine Intelligence Continuum|Machine Intelligence Continuum]]. - **Placed by:** [[wiki/Project X - Machine Intelligence History|Project X - Machine Intelligence History]].