Birthplace of Neural Networks: McCulloch & Pitts at UChicago
Where Neural Networks Were Born
In 1943, at the University of Chicago, Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts introduced the first mathematical model of a neural network—a foundational moment that continues to shape modern machine learning.
1943: The Beginning of Artificial Neural Networks
In 1943 American neurophysiologist and cybernetician of the University of Illinois at Chicago
Warren McCulloch and self-taught logician and cognitive psychologist Walter Pitts published “A Logical Calculus of the ideas Imminent in Nervous Activity,” describing the “McCulloch – Pitts neuron, ”the first mathematical model of a neural network.
Building on ideas in Alan Turing’s “On Computable Numbers”, McCulloch and Pitts’s paper provided a way to describe brain functions in abstract terms, and showed that simple elements connected in a neural network can have immense computational power. The paper received little attention until its ideas were applied by John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, and others.
From Theory to Transformation
McCulloch and Pitts’ work wasn’t just theoretical—it inspired generations of AI researchers. Their model introduced key ideas like binary processing, threshold functions, and logical computation, all of which influenced later advances in perceptrons, deep learning, and modern large language models.