A message sent on 19 September 1982 to a Carnegie Mellon University electronic bulletin board introduced the character sequences :-) and :-( as markers for jokes and non-jokes. This proposal, authored by Scott E. Fahlman, established a standard for digital communication that persists in global text-based interaction as the emoticon, providing tone indicators for otherwise ambiguous digital text.
Academic Background
Born in Medina, Ohio, in 1948, Fahlman pursued his higher education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in electrical engineering and computer science in 1973. In 1977, he earned a Doctor of Philosophy in artificial intelligence. He has noted that his doctoral diploma specifically identifies the degree as being awarded for original research in the field of artificial intelligence, a credential that may represent the first time the term was explicitly used on such a document.
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Fahlman holds the position of professor emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has contributed to the Language Technologies Institute and the Computer Science Department. His technical research focuses on automated planning, semantic networks, and neural networks. His work includes the development of the cascade correlation algorithm and significant contributions to the programming languages Common Lisp and Dylan. Between 2006 and 2015, he worked on Scone, a knowledge base project derived from his earlier thesis research on the NETL Semantic Network. Additionally, he served as the director of the Justsystem Pittsburgh Research Center from May 1996 to July 2001.
Professional Recognition
Throughout his career, Fahlman has engaged with the academic community as a member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and was named an AAAI Fellow in 2003. His collaborative efforts include co-authoring the 1983 paper titled Massively Parallel Architectures for AI: NETL, Thistle and Boltzmann Machines alongside Geoffrey Hinton and Terry Sejnowski. As a thesis advisor, he has guided the doctoral research of numerous individuals, including David S. Touretzky, Michael Witbrock, and Justin Boyan.
Fast facts
- Born: 1948, Medina, Ohio
- Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Field: Artificial Intelligence
- Employer: Carnegie Mellon University
- Key Invention: Emoticon
- Award: AAAI Fellow (2003)
Questions readers ask
Did Scott Fahlman invent the concept of the emoticon?
While he coined the specific usage of the smiley emoticon symbols, earlier concepts for similar markers appeared in a 1967 Reader's Digest article and were suggested by Vladimir Nabokov in 1969.
What was the original purpose of the smiley symbol?
Fahlman introduced the symbols to help distinguish between serious posts and jokes on electronic message boards at Carnegie Mellon.
Achievements
- Affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University
- Educated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Worked as computer scientist, university teacher and artificial intelligence researcher
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