Here's a nice tribute by Philip Greenspun: http://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2016/01/25/marvin-minsky-1927..., via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10971472.
Marvin Minsky dies at 88
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Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88
#72In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-tac-toe", Sussman replied. "Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said. Minsky then shut his eyes. "Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher…
It is now several decades later. Do TensorFlow/CNN builders use random initial configurations, or custom designed stuctures?
If you start with the same weights, then the neurons with similar connections will learn the same things. Random initialization is what gets them started in different directions.
Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88
#73We just lost a giant. Hard to imagine someone more black bar worthy for Hacker News, hope we have one up soon.
I hope not. The black bar has become a meaningless exercise in political posturing. Edit: allow me to clarify - just having to choose whether or not someone is "black bar worthy" is distasteful. Ian Murdock didn't get a black bar that I can recall, and I don't remember seeing one since then, even though other people relevant to the community have died. Are we to expect someone to change the color of the bar every tim…
I thought the black bar was done by the people who run the site, and "we" don't judge it at all.
In which case, it's a personal decision to honor someone they care about by placing a subtle notice on ther site, which happens to be popular. It's no different in spirit to the thousands of tribute blog posts being written as I type this.
I find it extremely distasteful to criticize how someone chooses to honor the dead. As long as they're not doing it by shooting guns into the air or hosting a destructive party next to your house or something like that, what do you care?
Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88
#74He was truly a brilliant and humble man, who wrote so much influential and interesting stuff!
Here's one of my favorite papers by Marvin Minsky:
Jokes and their Relation to the Cognitive Unconscious
Marvin Minsky, MIT
Abstract: Freud's theory of jokes explains how they overcome the mental "censors" that make it hard for us to think "forbidden" thoughts. But his theory did not work so well for humorous nonsense as for other comical subjects. In this essay I argue that the different forms of humor can be seen as much more similar, once we recognize the importance of knowledge about knowledge and, particularly, aspects of thinking concerned with recognizing and suppressing bugs -- ineffective or destructive thought processes. When seen in this light, much humor that at first seems pointless, or mysterious, becomes more understandable.
Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88
#75One of my earliest exposures to CS was his Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines. "Communication with Alien Intelligence" is another favorite of mine. The idea of enumerating all possible Turing Machines and looking for ones that do something meaningful is brilliant.
It is too bad that his book Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines is out of print.
Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88
#76I had the chance to walk with Marvin Minsky down a hallway once, and I asked him what he thought of Bayesian reasoning. He said that it seemed to him like it was still part of a general trend away from tackling the central problem in AI. I said I didn't think so, but he seemed tired so I didn't try to go into detail. There's an urban legend that I once got into a fistfight with Marvin Minsky, which does about as well…
I keep thinking about an article I read a couple of years ago about the two schools of thought in AI: the now popular Conventional AI and (I believe) Computational AI. The article was mainly about the lead proponent of computational AI and how, after he helped give birth to the AI field, he was in effect being ostracised because he didn't think conventional AI should be considered "intelligence" as we generally think…
What you're asking makes me think of Dijkstra's quote "the question whether machines can think as relevant as the question whether submarines can swim."
Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88
#77Here's a video image from the POV of a robotic Dakin Bear of Marvin Minsky's son, Henry Minsky, who had a look of trepidation at the idea of sacrificing his Dakin Bear to one of his dad's robotics experiments.
Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty egotistical to frame it that way of Asimov.
You are not Isaac Asimov. Therefore you cannot know his mind. So maybe he wasn't boasting at all.
Isaac Asimov wasn't any of the people he wasn't talking about either, so maybe he should've kept it shut about their minds, too.
But that wouldn't make good banter.
Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88
#79I had the chance to walk with Marvin Minsky down a hallway once, and I asked him what he thought of Bayesian reasoning. He said that it seemed to him like it was still part of a general trend away from tackling the central problem in AI. I said I didn't think so, but he seemed tired so I didn't try to go into detail. There's an urban legend that I once got into a fistfight with Marvin Minsky, which does about as well…
I keep thinking about an article I read a couple of years ago about the two schools of thought in AI: the now popular Conventional AI and (I believe) Computational AI. The article was mainly about the lead proponent of computational AI and how, after he helped give birth to the AI field, he was in effect being ostracised because he didn't think conventional AI should be considered "intelligence" as we generally think…
Was it this one about Hofstader?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-man-...
Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88
#80I had the chance to walk with Marvin Minsky down a hallway once, and I asked him what he thought of Bayesian reasoning. He said that it seemed to him like it was still part of a general trend away from tackling the central problem in AI. I said I didn't think so, but he seemed tired so I didn't try to go into detail. There's an urban legend that I once got into a fistfight with Marvin Minsky, which does about as well…
I keep thinking about an article I read a couple of years ago about the two schools of thought in AI: the now popular Conventional AI and (I believe) Computational AI. The article was mainly about the lead proponent of computational AI and how, after he helped give birth to the AI field, he was in effect being ostracised because he didn't think conventional AI should be considered "intelligence" as we generally think…