Unlikely Birthplaces for Both AI and BASIC Programming Language

On Saturday, April 25, 2026, I fulfilled a promise that I made to myself. A few days ago, when I gave a lecture to my students at Merrimack College, I casually mentioned that I wanted to visit the birthplace of AI, which is just a two-hour drive from Merrimack College. Given that spring time in New England is lovely, I drove there with my son Benjamin Li.

The day before the visit, I consulted Google AI and it told me that the AI plaque was in Carpenter Hall of Dartmouth College. I took that as a ground truth without any doubt. When I was there, I found nothing. The building is for the Art History Department. Fortunately, the library is not far from there, so I asked the librarian for help. She was nice, but she could not find the exact place for the AI plaque. I was disappointed.

When I went back to Carpenter Hall, I said to myself: "Let me try ChatGPT". ChatGPT told me that the AI plaque should be in Dartmouth Hall. Confused, I asked ChatGPT: "Carpenter Hall or Dartmouth Hall?" Immediately, ChatGPT tried to please me by chaning its mind! I don't want ChatGPT to just please me because I don't know the answer. Eventually, I decided to give Dartmouth Hall a try. Fortunately, I found the plaque and we were happy.

So AI gave me some headaches: Google AI gave me a wrong answer, and ChatGPT was not firm on its conviction. With my own "natural intelligence", I was able to find the place. After that, Benjamin and I took a break at the green, the big common area that is a favorite place for students to rest. From my estimate, it is much bigger than Harvard Yard in Cambridge, MA.

After a while, I thought about one thing: when I was a college student in China in 1986, the very first programming language that I learned was BASIC. At that time, I knew the birthplace of BASIC: Dartmouth College. I said to myself: "Is there anything to commemorate that big event?"

I asked ChatGPT and got the answer. It should be at Collis Student Center. I was so glad that the center was just 100 feet away from the chair where we were sitting. We went inside the Collis building. We found nothing. We even asked a student worker, but he also did not know. After some research, I went to the basement and asked a cashier, hoping he would know. Again, he did not know.

I did some more research and found a picture. From the picture, it seemed that it was taken outside of the building. It gave me enough information. I was convinced that the plaque must be placed outside. Lucky for me, I found the plaque after some search.

We also looked at the campus map that showed the walking route from Dartmouth Hall to Collis Student Center.

A Glorious History

Nowadays, Dartmouth College is not famous for its computer science and AI programs. However, it does have a glorious history. The legacy of John McCarthy is a testament to this. McCarthy was a visionary computer and cognitive scientist who originally coined the term "Artificial Intelligence". In 1955, while serving as a mathematics professor at Dartmouth, he co-authored the proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. This 1956 workshop is widely considered the founding event of the AI field. His pioneering vision not only permanently marked Dartmouth as the birthplace of AI but also set the fundamental trajectory for decades of computing innovation.

Equally transformative was the invention of the BASIC programming language in 1964 by Dartmouth professors John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz. Designed to make programming accessible to non-science students, BASIC revolutionized computer science education and later became the language that sparked the personal computer revolution. In fact, the very first commercial product of the mighty Microsoft was a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800. The profound impact of their work was felt throughout the university and beyond; remarkably, John G. Kemeny later went on to serve as the 13th president of Dartmouth College.