Patrick Winston

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Patrick Henry Winston is an American computer scientist. Winston was director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory for most of its existence, from 1972 to 1997. He succeeded Marvin Minsky, who left to found the MIT Media Lab shortly after establishing the AI Lab in the wake of the political upheavals at that time. He was succeeded by Rodney Brooks after a long, stable period. Brooks went on to terminate the lab by merger into the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

Winston's thesis work concerned the difficulty of learning; he concluded you could only learn something you nearly already know. He was a student of Marvin Minsky. Currently, he is Ford Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science at the MIT CSAIL. He is active in research and interested in machine learning and human intelligence. Winston also teaches a heavily subscribed courses at MIT titled "The Human Intelligence Enterprise" which teaches AI and how to effectively communicate. Winston is known within the MIT community for his strong commitment to supporting MIT undergraduate culture. He is also an avid woodworker having made all the furniture in his office.

Winston currently teaches 6.034: Artificial Intelligence and 6.803/6.833: Human Intelligence Enterprise. Winston is also a (co-)author of a number of CS and AI textbooks, including: