[lispm]

> Lisp was invented by the guy who coined the term AI, not for AI.

Lisp was designed for AI programming.

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/recursive/node1.html

> A programming system called LISP (for LISt Processor) has been developed for the IBM 704 computer by the Artificial Intelligence group at M.I.T. The system was designed to facilitate experiments with a proposed system called the Advice Taker, whereby a machine could be instructed to handle declarative as well as imperative sentences and could exhibit ``common sense'' in carrying out its instructions. The original proposal [1] for the Advice Taker was made in November 1958. The main requirement was a programming system for manipulating expressions representing formalized declarative and imperative sentences so that the Advice Taker system could make deductions.

So it was designed for the 'Advice Talker'. The AI domains were natural language processing and common sense reasoning.