4 ms·

A.I. (1981)

124 points by kercker 11y ago

jbrozena22 11y ago
"At one point the overhead lights dimmed, the orchestra began playing the theme of the film “Star Wars,” and a spotlight focused on an opening in the stage curtain through which Gammonoid was supposed to propel itself onto the stage. To my dismay the robot got entangled in the curtain and its appearance was delayed for five minutes."
sqldba 11y ago
IMHO this article is terrible. Aside from the atrocious size it both meanders along on screen-length paragraphs and then jumps between decades, characters, and quotes. Who the hell can read something like this? Word count and editing matters even if we don't have physical pages to constrain the text anymore. Sloppy sloppy journalism.
- hjek 11y ago
  Having only read the first half, I find the article interesting and well-written, especially Minsky's quote on how belief in 'free will' is based on an incomplete understanding on human activity; and also how he wires up the circuits to use audio for debugging (That is such a cool idea). Who the hell can read something like this and not enjoy it? Gonna read last half now. By the way, how is this to make sense?: > Word count and editing matters even if we don't have physical pages to constrain the text anymore. It's written in 1981, it says on the top. With lines like these, it should be difficult to overlook: "Several times while I was there, Minsky paused to read his “mail”—messages on the terminal’s printout system."
  - Outdoorsman 11y ago
    Agreed...current attention spans, well, they're not what they used to be... The New Yorker, through the years, has produced as much quality long-form content as any magazine in the history of North American journalism...this article is no exception...I'll leave it at that...
    - cbd1984 11y ago
      It's amazing how attention spans have been declining for the entire history of the human race. It beggars belief that we could have declined so far and still have the ability to bemoan the young.
kazinator 11y ago
The bulk of this is various biographical anecdotes about Marvin Minsky; perhaps the HN submission title might reflect that?
david-given 11y ago
"This thing was going one day when a friend of mine named Edward Fredkin, who’s a professor of computer science at M.I.T., came in, and he said, ‘That sounds pretty good. How did you get it to make those sounds?’ I showed him, and we spent the afternoon making more sounds. Fredkin formed a company to manufacture the machines as toys.”" I believe this is it: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/06/meet-strange-wonderful-70s-machine-used-ai-make-music/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/06/meet-strange-wonderful...
njloof 11y ago
As in this article, there will be lots of whitewashing of the relationship between Minsky and Rosenblatt today, I'm afraid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptrons_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptrons_(book)
- donohoe 11y ago
  Not sure I understand. This article is 35 years old. Its hard for it to white-wash anything. Did I mis-understand?
hohenheim 11y ago
It is a long article but a one well worthy of the time spent reading. It is not a "on my way home" type of read. I specially enjoyed the last paragraphs where Minsky describes how he envisions A.I. development in the future. That he is not seeking a single unifying theory of human brain, but rather, several smaller theories that in the end will create a complete picture of how human brain functions.

A.I. (1981)

124 points by kercker 11y ago

"At one point the overhead lights dimmed, the orchestra began playing the theme of the film “Star Wars,” and a spotlight focused on an opening in the stage curtain through which Gammonoid was supposed to propel itself onto the stage. To my dismay the robot got entangled in the curtain and its appearance was delayed for five minutes."

sqldba 11y ago

IMHO this article is terrible. Aside from the atrocious size it both meanders along on screen-length paragraphs and then jumps between decades, characters, and quotes. Who the hell can read something like this? Word count and editing matters even if we don't have physical pages to constrain the text anymore. Sloppy sloppy journalism.

hjek 11y ago
Having only read the first half, I find the article interesting and well-written, especially Minsky's quote on how belief in 'free will' is based on an incomplete understanding on human activity; and also how he wires up the circuits to use audio for debugging (That is such a cool idea). Who the hell can read something like this and not enjoy it? Gonna read last half now. By the way, how is this to make sense?: > Word count and editing matters even if we don't have physical pages to constrain the text anymore. It's written in 1981, it says on the top. With lines like these, it should be difficult to overlook: "Several times while I was there, Minsky paused to read his “mail”—messages on the terminal’s printout system."
- Outdoorsman 11y ago
  Agreed...current attention spans, well, they're not what they used to be... The New Yorker, through the years, has produced as much quality long-form content as any magazine in the history of North American journalism...this article is no exception...I'll leave it at that...
  - cbd1984 11y ago
    It's amazing how attention spans have been declining for the entire history of the human race. It beggars belief that we could have declined so far and still have the ability to bemoan the young.

kazinator 11y ago

The bulk of this is various biographical anecdotes about Marvin Minsky; perhaps the HN submission title might reflect that?

david-given 11y ago

"This thing was going one day when a friend of mine named Edward Fredkin, who’s a professor of computer science at M.I.T., came in, and he said, ‘That sounds pretty good. How did you get it to make those sounds?’ I showed him, and we spent the afternoon making more sounds. Fredkin formed a company to manufacture the machines as toys.”" I believe this is it: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/06/meet-strange-wonderful-70s-machine-used-ai-make-music/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/06/meet-strange-wonderful...

njloof 11y ago

As in this article, there will be lots of whitewashing of the relationship between Minsky and Rosenblatt today, I'm afraid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptrons_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptrons_(book)

donohoe 11y ago
Not sure I understand. This article is 35 years old. Its hard for it to white-wash anything. Did I mis-understand?

hohenheim 11y ago

It is a long article but a one well worthy of the time spent reading. It is not a "on my way home" type of read. I specially enjoyed the last paragraphs where Minsky describes how he envisions A.I. development in the future. That he is not seeking a single unifying theory of human brain, but rather, several smaller theories that in the end will create a complete picture of how human brain functions.