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Marvin Minsky dies at 88

nytimes.com

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Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#91

Post by proc0 »

saosebastiao wrote: post #10

RIP. I will always hold him as an inspiration. Of interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neats_vs._scruffies I find it interesting because Minsky did a lot of the foundational work in Neural Network research yet he philosophically identified as the opposite on the Neat/Scruffy spectrum of most NN researchers today. Much like Bayes, I think there is some immense wisdom from his research that will not even be acknowle…

I think that's interesting as well. I would have guessed he was a Neat from his talks and his admiration of AGI because it implies he agrees there will have to be a succinct theory of general intelligence/consciousness.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#93

Post by gonzo »

I met Minsky once in February 1987, at a rally in Las Vegas to protest the Nevada Test Site.. A lot of famous people (Carl Sagan, Barbara Boxer, Tom Downey, Ramsey Clark, Martin Sheen, Kris Kristofferson) were there, but I'd gone to meet Minsky.

I had taken along a (quite early) copy of the GNU Emacs manual. The FSF was selling them, but I'd put this one together myself. Running TeX on the texinfo source, converting the output for the Imagen printer, and then taking it to Kinko's to be spiral bound, including my imitation of the yellow cover that the FSF version had.

I asked Minsky for his autograph. He looked at what I presented, understood what it was, an autographed inside the front cover, "Marvin Minsky, friend of Stallman".

In April of 2011 in an airport in Honolulu, I presented that same manual for an autograph to Richard Stallman. He looked my manual over for a long time. IIRC, it documents Emacs version 16 or 17. Then he signed it, below Minsky's autograph, "Richard M. Stallman - Friend of Minsky"

RIP, Marvin.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#94

Post by 27182818284 »

kzhahou wrote: post #47
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."

Black bar is an empty gesture. Who does it serve? He died, his ideas didn't.

Well humans mourn their dead, but also there is a more practical reason if you'd like:

When I see a black bar on Hacker News, it serves as an alert to me to scan the news more carefully. Although I knew who McCarthy was, Jobs, etc, I didn't know this person. The black bar alerted me that someone in this community that is considered quite an influence died. Now I'm reading all about the person in various articles. The black bar helped to alert me to that.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#95

Post by JoshTriplett »

Eliezer wrote: post #28

I 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…

> We have temporarily misplaced a great mind. See you later, Professor Minsky.

This kind of statement gives me great hope, and in particular represents the kind of fundamental mindset change that helps counter many of the painful aphorisms commonly pulled out when someone dies. I find it deeply unfortunate how rarely it applies, but as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, it applies here. Thank you.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#97

Post by tedks »

rspeer wrote: post #66
evc123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was his cerebral hemorrhage a sudden/unpredictable death? If not, I'm surprised he didn't first relocate to cooperative hospice care in Scottsdale near Alcor to cryopreserve himself before damage became (possibly) irreversible.

And spend his last days away from his friends, family, and colleagues, away from his wonderful house and his piano? No, I think that even with foreknowledge he would have chosen to die in Boston.

And ruin his obviously intentional cryopreservation plans? No, I think that even with foreknowledge he would have chosen to do exactly what he chose to do and be cryopreserved.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#98

Post by VikingCoder »

Ologn wrote: post #67
julianpye wrote: post #7

Isaac Asimov: "The only people I ever met whose intellects surpassed my own were Carl Sagan and Marvin Minsky."

Minsky's Society of Mind lectures are online, thankfully - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pb3z2w9gDg . In one of the lectures, Minsky told a story about how when he was at Princeton, Oppenheimer invited him to lunch. When Oppenheimer brought Minsky to the lunch, there were two other people there - Gödel and Einstein. Talk about brainpower, that must have been an interesting table conversation.

They probably just talked about how the human brain would never be capable of understanding some true things about physics.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#99

Post by luckydude »

proc0 wrote: post #92

So sad. I wanted him to survive until a true AI breakthrough happens, which seems so close (granted for many decades now, but that's why).

If you look at what the cars are doing, I'm not an AI guy, but that deep learning that the cars are doing seems like something he might like. In my book that neural network stuff is AI.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#100

Post by tlrobinson »

tlrobinson wrote: post #52
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…

Out of curiosity, does anyone have a list of people who HN has enabled the black bar for?

I went ahead and compiled a list of "black bar" memorials from what I could remember and a little bit of searching.

(It's probably not comprehensive, but it's clearly composed of computing luminaries and members of the YC community)

Dan Haubert (1984 - 2009)

Robert Morris (1932 - 2011)

John McCarthy (1927 - 2011)

Dennis Ritchie (1941 - 2011)

Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)

Doug Engelbart (1925 - 2013)

Aaron Swartz (1986 - 2013)

Gene Amdahl (1922 - 2015)

Marvin Minsky (1927 - 2016)

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