Nils John Nilsson (1933-2019) was an American computer scientist and one of the founding figures of artificial intelligence. He spent more than two decades at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), where much of the early work on robotics and search took place, and led the institute from 1980 to 1984. In 1985 he joined Stanford University as chair of the computer science department, a role he held until 1990, and he helped move the department into the School of Engineering.
Nilsson’s name is attached to two ideas taught in nearly every AI course. With Peter Hart and Bertram Raphael he co-invented the A* search algorithm in 1968, a method for finding least-cost paths that combines guaranteed optimality with efficiency. With Richard Fikes he co-created the STRIPS planner in 1971, whose representation of actions in terms of preconditions and effects remains the basis of automated planning. Both came out of the Shakey project, the SRI robot that built a model of its surroundings, reasoned about them, and planned its own actions, an effort Nilsson helped direct in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
He was also an influential author and teacher. His textbooks, including “Problem-Solving Methods in Artificial Intelligence,” “Principles of Artificial Intelligence,” and the late-career history “The Quest for Artificial Intelligence,” shaped how the field was learned, and he co-founded the publisher Morgan Kaufmann. He served as an early president of the AAAI.
Why business readers should care: the search and planning algorithms Nilsson helped invent are still running inside navigation, logistics, and robotics systems. He is a clear example of foundational research, decades old, that quietly powers everyday technology.