The Telegraph My details My newsletters Logout Upgrade to Premium My details My newsletters Logout The Telegraph Seymour Papert, artificial intelligence guru – obituary [105465446_MIT_mathematician_Seymour_Papert_who_w_his_MIT_colleagues_de Pierce/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty 11 August 2016 • 4:29pm Seymour Papert, who has died aged 88, held the title Lego Professor for Learning Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was a world expert on IT and learning – and artificial intelligence.
 Once described as a “cross between Robin Williams in the movie Toys and Albert Einstein”, Papert argued that children, in all societies, can master computing, not just their simple operation but the writing of computer code (programming) as well.
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 He went on to do post-doctoral research on mathematics and children’s education at the University of Geneva, under the psychologist Jean Piaget, who taught that play was a vital part of a child’s cognitive development.
 In 1960, Papert attended a cybernetics conference in London where he met Marvin Minsky, the co-founder of the artificial intelligence group at MIT.
 Papert moved to MIT in 1963 at a time when there was a schism in the American computer science community between those who sought to develop intelligent software by whatever practical means, and those who based their work on the similation of the cognitive processes that go on in the human brain.