Oscar Firschein
April 15, 1927-March 5, 2025
Palo Alto, California

Computer scientist, engineer, Renaissance man, husband, father, and grandfather, Oscar Firschein passed away on March 5 at the age of 97. Son of a printer in Brooklyn, NY, he pioneered research in the early field of artificial intelligence. Along with the founders of AI, he had influence in the development of key AI technologies, such as the ability of satellites to recognize images from space, autonomous land vehicles, remote piloted aircraft, and NASA space station automation. He participated in Dialog, one of the first library information retrieval systems and search engines. He published multiple articles and books, including a leading textbook on AI, Intelligence: the Eye, the Brain and the Computer.

Oscar was a senior member of the Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory; he also worked as a scientific leader in the Perception Group at the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International; and at DARPA in Washington D.C., where, as a program manager he directed significant research in the field of image understanding. He taught and consulted at Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and San Jose State University.

As a child, he tinkered with radios and chemicals, burning through his mother’s pots and pans, vexing his parents. He later earned a B.E.E. in Electrical Engineering from the City College of New York and an M.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh. He worked on major construction projects with the Army Corps of Engineers, including a gigantic dam and a hospital, and programmed one of the first modern computers for Republic Aviation.

He and his wife Theda moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s when he began to work for the Palo Alto Research Laboratory at Lockheed. Oscar and Theda’s creek-side home near the Stanford campus hosted an eclectic stream of visitors, from counterculture dreamers and artists to leaders in technology and education as well as industry. The home brimmed with circuit board sculptures, art, an encyclopedic collection of books, and a one-ton printing press rescued from his father’s Brooklyn print shop, Firschein Press, including its wooden type and original posters. An old Victrola with Yiddish records rounded out the scene. Theda worked on a bookmobile that went through the small communities along the redwoods and the coast, and later, as a children’s librarian.

They raised two children, Ben and Joseph. Oscar was a great father, always interested in whatever projects his boys had going on, whether it was building a darkroom in a closet to develop black and white photographs, or using some of the first personal computers to interest them in programming. He loved interacting with his three grandchildren – watching their development with the pride of a grandparent and the curiosity of a computer scientist who spent a lifetime studying intelligence and cognitive development. He also loved sharing stories with them on his childhood and early family life, as well as sharing his wonder and awe at the world, with its mathematical patterns and improbability.

Oscar and Theda were always incredibly giving of their time: many people have remarked at how they positively changed people’s lives. Oscar had a great influence on the careers of his graduate students: many went on to leading professorships and significant careers in industry.

Devoted to studying, to the synagogue, to Talmud classes, and Great Books, Oscar’s intellectual curiosity led him, in his 70s, after a full career in engineering, to earn an M.L.A. in Liberal Arts from Stanford University in 2000 and then to edit the program’s literary magazine, Tangents, for almost a decade thereafter. He wrote two memoirs of his life, the latter which he completed just this month. Oscar and Theda recently celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. Into their later years they could be seen walking arm in arm: as they explained, it was love, but it was also to hold each other up.

Oscar leaves behind a rich legacy of accomplishments, family and friends. He had an amazing life that spanned nearly a century. He will be remembered and missed.

Donations in Oscar’s memory may be made to the Yiddish Book Center and Congregation Kol Emeth.