6 Nicholas Negroponte and the MIT Architecture Machine Group: Interfaces to Artificial Intelligence

In remarkable and sometimes unsettling ways, the MIT Architecture Machine Group experimented with the experience of artificial intelligence and how people would interact with it. The pre de ces sor to the MIT Media Lab, the Architecture Machine Group was founded by Nicholas Negroponte and Leon Groisser and operated from 1967 to 1985, when it folded into the Media Lab. The Architecture Machine Group (AMG) integrated architecture with artificial intelligence, computer science, and electrical engineering. The group collaborated frequently with MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab and experimented with its technologies, developing ideas from cognitive psy chol ogy, artificial intelligence, computer science, art, film, and human—computer interaction, among other disciplines.