Licklider, J. C. R.

1915–1990

Computer Scientist, Internet Pioneer

There has long been a war of semantics, revolving around which of the early computing pioneers can justly be described as “the father of the Internet,” but the reality is that no one person invented it. However, it can safely be said that no one anywhere in the world dreamt of it before J. C. R. Licklider.

Licklider's contribution to the development of what became the Internet, indeed to the field of computer science as a whole, can hardly be overestimated. But his was not just a visionary role. As the first director of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Licklider oversaw one of the most fertile periods of creativity in the history of computer science, recruiting the key people and securing the government funding that would lay the groundwork for the creation in 1969 of the ARPANET, the direct precursor to today's Internet. His legendarily infectious enthusiasm for his idea—which he jovially called the “intergalactic computer network,” overcame staunch opposition from some in key positions who considered “on-line” computing to be a farce and a waste of government dollars—probably was just as great a contribution.

Licklider, or “Lick” as he insisted on being called, was born Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider on March 11, 1915, in St. Louis, Missouri, the only son of Baptist minister Joseph Parron Licklider and Margaret Robnett Licklider. In 1937, Licklider graduated from St. Louis' Washington University with majors in psychology, mathematics, and physics. He received his master's degree the following year, and continued graduate studies in psychology at the University of Rochester, receiving a Ph.D. in 1942.

Licklider's Ph.D. research investigated theories about perception and loudness, measuring the brain's responses to tone impulses. Later, as a Harvard University behavioral scientist, he worked throughout the 1940s and 1950s on “psychoacoustics” (a field in which Licklider's contributions are also historically significant), trying to model the way the brain works in connection with hearing. This work led to his shift into computing: It was while trying to create such a model on an already-archaic early 1950s–vintage analog computer that Licklider decided that he had better learn digital computing if he ever hoped to complete the work. By 1960, Licklider had left academia, including a mid-1950s tenure at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to become a vice president at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Inc. (BBN), where he served as head of the psychoacoustics, engineering psychology, and information-systems research departments. BBN procured a digital computer for Licklider, on which he began to learn programming. It was a portentous moment.

In his memorable 1960 paper titled “Man-Computer Symbiosis,” Licklider leapt far ahead of any computer's current capabilities to tell of a day when it would be possible to “bring computing machines effectively into processes of thinking … in real time.” His background in psychology had everything to do with this cheerfully naïve approach. As a specialist in engineering psychology, Licklider simply thought that computers could and should function more like the human brain, and even serve as an indispensable partner and machine extension of the mind.

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