Some Recollections about the Early Days of AAAI

After much preliminary discussion in the AI community about forming a national society, Raj Reddy took on the work of organizing people. In 1979 he was the general chair for IJCAI-79, and I was the program chair, so we were already working closely together and thinking about organization. We were not alone in being frustrated by the phoenix-like nature of IJCAI—springing to life before every biannual conference, then dying, with little continuity. Also, it was obvious that volunteers from academe and industry had numerous distractions and other obligations besides IJCAI, so important deadlines could easily be missed. An organization with a permanent staff could solve both those problems. On the way to Tokyo in the summer of 1979, Raj brought together Don Walker, Woody Bledsoe, and me for a meeting in Menlo Park to nail down some of the details of organizing the new society. (The name of the restaurant, perhaps aptly, was Late for the Train.) Don Walker had been the secretary-treasurer of IJCAI for a number of years—and was the “corporate memory” for IJCAI—so Raj asked Don to become the first secretary-treasurer of the new organization. Raj had, I believe, already secured agreement from 25th Anniversary Issue