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Marvin Minsky dies at 88

nytimes.com

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Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#81

Post by krapp »

mikeash wrote: post #73
krapp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

"We" certainly do judge, even if that judgement has no practical value. People do act as if it's up for debate. Whenever we decide one death is worthy of it and ignore others, or get into petty arguments if it doesn't appear fast enough, or for the right person. An expectation builds which, if not properly catered to, leads to insult and animosity. And given that it's Hacker News, sometimes suspicion and paranoia.

It certainly is within the site owners' right to do whatever they like, but for the community it's becoming a spectacle.

Although obviously, as the bar is up right now, my opinion on the matter isn't going to prevail.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#82

Post by lambda »

reality_hacker wrote: post #43
Eliezer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine who deserves a black bar if Minsky doesn't, unless a grey bar would be more appropriate (Minsky was signed up for cryonics with Alcor, so he's not dead dead.)

> I can't imagine who deserves a black bar if Minsky doesn't Have you chance to elaborate why this guy deserved this? Did he build first neural network, lisp machine, ALICE chatbot, break image net. I always considered him as some kind of celebrity from science, while other guys, which names nobody remembers, actually pushed AI movement by doing real things, while working on Google Brain, Watson, cyc, trying to catch…

> first neural network

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_neural_analog_reinf...

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#83

Post by nightpool »

hrayr wrote: post #59
ffk wrote: post #12

Admin, can we get a black bar for this? Marvin Minsky is widely referred to as the "Founding Father of AI."

You can change the topcolor in the settings to black to get your own personal black bar. You won't see the top menu links.

You're completely missing the point of the black bar—its a way for the community to mourn the loss of a fellow hacker.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#84

Post by mikeash »

krapp wrote: post #81
mikeash wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

"We" certainly do judge, even if that judgement has no practical value. People do act as if it's up for debate. Whenever we decide one death is worthy of it and ignore others, or get into petty arguments if it doesn't appear fast enough, or for the right person. An expectation builds which, if not properly catered to, leads to insult and animosity. And given that it's Hacker News, sometimes suspicion and paranoia. It…

I'd say the solution here is not to end the black bars, but to end the petty disputes by being more civilized in the discussions. Perhaps that's too much to ask, but we should give it a shot.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#86

Post by tarr11 »

bijection wrote: post #8
Tossrock wrote: post #4

In 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…

From the jargon file [1] [1] http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html#id3141241

Found this original version copied from this story (original source is a dead link) [1]

"So Sussman began working on a program. Not long after, this odd-looking bald guy came over. Sussman figured the guy was going to boot him out, but instead the man sat down, asking, “Hey, what are you doing?” Sussman talked over his program with the man, Marvin Minsky. At one point in the discussion, Sussman told Minsky that he was using a certain randomizing technique in his program because he didn’t want the machine to have any preconceived notions. Minsky said, “Well, it has them, it’s just that you don’t know what they are.” It was the most profound thing Gerry Sussman had ever heard. And Minsky continued, telling him that the world is built a certain way, and the most important thing we can do with the world is avoid randomness, and figure out ways by which things can be planned. Wisdom like this has its effect on seventeen-year-old freshmen, and from then on Sussman was hooked.]"

[1] http://spetharrific.tumblr.com/post/26600309788/sussman-atta...

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#87

Post by brianpgordon »

Houshalter wrote: post #58
gohrt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is now several decades later. Do TensorFlow/CNN builders use random initial configurations, or custom designed stuctures?

NN weights need to start random because otherwise two weights with exactly the same value can get "stuck" and be unable to differentiate. Backpropagation relies on starting random patterns that kind of match so that it can fine tune them. But the weights are often initialized to be really close to zero.

Given the era though, Sussman may have actually been working with a neural net that's not the typical hidden-layer variety. "Randomly wired" could be a statement about the topography of the network, not about the weights.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#89

Post by fsck--off »

Igglyboo wrote: post #54
ffk wrote: post #12

Admin, can we get a black bar for this? Marvin Minsky is widely referred to as the "Founding Father of AI."

Did we even get a black bar when Steve Jobs died? Seems like the admins have pretty much done away with the black bar thing.

Yes.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111006084129/http://news.ycomb...

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#90

Post by Outdoorsman »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #22
reasonattlm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can hope that they'll make the attempt regardless. Alcor's position is to carry out their directive from a member regardless of third party opinions on viability where they can, as having the reputation for doing this minimizes the very real problem of interference from family members (for reasons economic, religious, etc). Also it is very hard to say at the time (as time is critical) how much damage is done via…

Agreed. Not trying guarantees failure; trying leaves some possibility of success.

Agreed...given the resources and money there's nothing wrong with hedging your bets...
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