Marvin Minsky

Marvin Lee Minsky (born August 9, 1927), sometimes affectionately known as "Old Man Minsky", is an American scientist in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of MIT's AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy.

Related Topics:
August 9 - 1927 - American - Scientist - Artificial intelligence - MIT - Philosophy

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He was born in New York, where he attended The Fieldston School and

Related Topics:
New York - The Fieldston School

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Bronx High School of Science. He later attended

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Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts. He served in the US Navy in 1944-45. He holds a BA in Mathematics from Harvard (1950) and a PhD in the same field from Princeton (1954). He has been on the MIT faculty since 1958. He is currently Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and Professor of electrical engineering and computer science, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Related Topics:
Phillips Academy - Andover, Massachusetts - US Navy - Harvard - Princeton - Media Arts - Electrical engineering - Computer science

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He has been awarded many honors. He is a member of both the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences. He won the Turing Award in 1969, the Japan Prize in 1990, the IJCAI Award for Research Excellence in 1991, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in 2001.

Related Topics:
National Academy of Engineering - National Academy of Sciences - Turing Award - Japan Prize - IJCAI Award for Research Excellence - Benjamin Franklin Medal

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Minsky's patents include the first head-mounted graphical display (1963) as well as the confocal scanning microscope (a predecessor to today's widely used confocal laser scanning microscope) and, jointly with Seymour Papert, the first Logo "turtle". Minsky also built, in 1951, the first randomly wired neural network learning machine, SNARC.

Related Topics:
Patent - Confocal laser scanning microscope - Seymour Papert - Logo - 1951 - SNARC

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He wrote the book Perceptrons (with Seymour A. Papert), which became the foundational work in the analysis of artificial neural networks. Its criticism of unrigorous research in the field has been claimed as being responsible for the virtual disappearance of artificial neural networks from academic research in the 1970s.

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Minsky was an adviser on the movie and is referred to in the movie and book,

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:"Probably no one would ever know this; it did not matter. In the 1980s, Minsky and Good had shown how neural networks could be generated automatically - self replicated - in accordance with any arbitrary learning program. Artificial brains could be grown by a process strikingly analogous to the development of a human brain. In any given case, the precise details would never be known, and even if they were, they would be millions of times too complex for human understanding."

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During filming, Minsky was almost killed due to an accident, but survived.

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Minsky was also responsible for suggesting the underlying plot of "Jurassic Park" to Michael Crichton during a walk on the beach in Malibu. At that point in the meanderings which led to the classic novel and film, the dinosaurs were conceived as automata. Crichton later drew on his biomedical training to conceive the dinosaurs as arising through cloning.

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Minsky is an actor in an artificial intelligence koan (attributed to his student, Danny Hillis) from the Jargon file:-

Related Topics:
Koan - Danny Hillis - Jargon file

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:In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.

Related Topics:
Sussman - PDP-6

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:"What are you doing?", asked Minsky.

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:"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-tac-toe" Sussman replied.

Related Topics:
Neural net - Tic-tac-toe

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:"Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky.

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:"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said.

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:Minsky then shut his eyes.

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:"Why do you close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher.

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:"So that the room will be empty."

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:At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

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