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    Classic AI: search, logic & planning· 1960

    Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine, Part I

    John McCarthy (first author) · 1960

    Read the original

    DOI 10.1145/367177.367199OpenAlex W2045255985

    On the reading lists

    Why it matters

    Introduced LISP, enabling decades of symbolic AI research and programming.

    Condensed from the expert lists' notes.

    The record

    First released
    1960 (from OpenAlex)
    Citations
    1,632 citations, as counted by Semantic Scholar logoSemantic Scholar (non-commercial licence)
    Named by
    the chatgpt list only
    Score
    0.379 · computed rank 403 · consensus 0.44, must-read 0.5, citations percentile 0.562 (pre-1970 · classic-ai), awards 0, existing lists 0. Method

    Editor's notes

    • Readability check: pass: McCarthy's Lisp paper; a founding text of AI programming. (AI draft (Claude), not yet reviewed, 2026-10-29)

    Data sources

    Catalogue data from OpenAlex (CC0), Crossref (CC0 metadata; no abstracts are shown), arXiv, and Papers With Code (CC BY-SA 4.0), and Semantic Scholar logoSemantic Scholar (used under its non-commercial API licence). Each count names its source. See the method.