Models of My Life

The author reviews his life as a Nobel laureate in economics and his role as the father of artificial intelligence and asks himself how his life as a scientist helps explain his own behavior

Simon observes himself as an object for scientific inquiry in this refreshingly innovative autobiography. Principal architect of the field of artificial intelligence, this polymath has applied the metaphor of a decision-making maze to human cognition, management science, economics and politics--winning a Nobel Prize in 1978. Instead of a dry, rationalist exercise, this traipse through the branching paths of his personal labyrinth turns out to be a quirky, soul-baring self-analysis. In early chapters on his introspective Milwaukee childhood, he refers to himself in the third person as "the boy." He is equally objective in discussing his 1930s flirtation with political radicalism, his half-century-long marriage and the politics of scientific infighting. This is a disarming self-portrait by a gifted writer who believes that the real self is an illusion and that one's life need not have a unifying thread. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Simon is a veritable Renaissance man: considered the father of artificial intelligence, he also contributed to the theory of organizational behavior and was the first social scientist to be admitted to the National Academy of Science. In this extensive and entertaining autobiography, he writes smoothly and provocatively on a range of topics from his early youth to his years at UC Berkeley, Illinois, and, finally Carnegie Mellon. He is surprisingly candid in discussing how he "prepared" for his Nobel prize in economics, and his descriptions of political and personal in-fighting in academe document an aspect often not shown. Simon has participated in some of the most wide-ranging intellectual developments of this century, and his autobiography surely will interest many readers.
- Hilary D. Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab., Livermore, Cal.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.