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A case of life imitating AI koans: Uncarved block In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you

A case of life imitating AI koans: Uncarved block 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. "So that the room will be empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. (It seems based on a true story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan )

argonaut 11y ago
The actual quote: "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" makes no indication it was a neural net ;)
- azzafazza 11y ago
  ;)
- latentspace 11y ago
  Not according to the jargon file http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html#id3141241 http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html#id3141241
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    Both the Jargon file quote and a citation from a published book (which has the quote the grandparent posted) are listed on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan Eric Raymond kinda butchered the Jargon File when he took over maintenance, so it wouldn't surprise me if some of the text there is invented. The original Jargon File does not contain any koans: http://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html http://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html
jmathes 11y ago
It sounds like the point of this story is to illustrate by analogy that starting from first principles is sometimes a silly way to approach a problem, and by extrapolation that it's a silly way to make an AI that plays Go well. Making an AI that plays Go well is not (and has never been) the real goal. They're trying to learn how to build a AI that can solve any problem.
- alexdowad 11y ago
  I don't think that's the point of the story. In the story, Sussman says that because the initial state of his net was randomized, it will "have no preconceptions". But that's not true. It still has "preconceptions", but randomly chosen ones. Because Sussman didn't know what they were, that didn't mean they didn't exist, any more than closing your eyes means the room is empty.
- theoh 11y ago
  The Taoist concept of the uncarved block, referenced in the title of the koan, refers to naturalness and simplicity. I'm sure someone more expert than me can give a better explanation but it seems highly relevant to the idea of learning to play Go based only on the rules, rather than any human tradition of strategy. http://taomanor.org/pu.html http://taomanor.org/pu.html

argonaut 11y ago

The actual quote: "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" makes no indication it was a neural net ;)

azzafazza 11y ago
;)
latentspace 11y ago
Not according to the jargon file http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html#id3141241 http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html#id3141241
- nostrademons 11y ago
  Both the Jargon file quote and a citation from a published book (which has the quote the grandparent posted) are listed on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan Eric Raymond kinda butchered the Jargon File when he took over maintenance, so it wouldn't surprise me if some of the text there is invented. The original Jargon File does not contain any koans: http://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html http://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html

jmathes 11y ago

It sounds like the point of this story is to illustrate by analogy that starting from first principles is sometimes a silly way to approach a problem, and by extrapolation that it's a silly way to make an AI that plays Go well. Making an AI that plays Go well is not (and has never been) the real goal. They're trying to learn how to build a AI that can solve any problem.

alexdowad 11y ago
I don't think that's the point of the story. In the story, Sussman says that because the initial state of his net was randomized, it will "have no preconceptions". But that's not true. It still has "preconceptions", but randomly chosen ones. Because Sussman didn't know what they were, that didn't mean they didn't exist, any more than closing your eyes means the room is empty.
theoh 11y ago
The Taoist concept of the uncarved block, referenced in the title of the koan, refers to naturalness and simplicity. I'm sure someone more expert than me can give a better explanation but it seems highly relevant to the idea of learning to play Go based only on the rules, rather than any human tradition of strategy. http://taomanor.org/pu.html http://taomanor.org/pu.html