Information / AI & Robotics

McCulloch-Pitts neuron

Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts showed in 1943 that networks of simple on/off neurons can compute logic: the first neural network model.

In 1943 the neurophysiologist Warren McCulloch and the logician Walter Pitts modelled a nerve cell as a threshold switch and proved that networks of such units can compute logical functions. The paper joined Cajal's picture of the neuron with Turing's idea of computation. It was the starting point for artificial neural networks and for seeing the brain as a kind of machine.