Marvin Minsky

is a well known pioneering researcher in the field of ArtificialIntelligence, with a lot of Web references and online stuff. He co-founded the MassachusettsInstituteOfTechnology MITAILab with SeymourPapert. Recipient of 1969 TuringAward.

His impact on AlanKay is recorded in Alan Kay's paper on the EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk.

This alone makes him worth a vote in RespectedSoftwareExperts. But who outside of software has heard of him?

Anyone who's read DouglasHofstadter's GoedelEscherBach or DanielDennett's ConsciousnessExplained?. Doesn't mean they know anything non-trivial about him, of course. Realistically that's normally not required to gain respect from the outside world! In fact, perhaps the more they really understand ...

He's one of the most vocal AI practioners around. I suppose when neural networks were once again popular in the late eighties he made several media appearances. -- ss

See also More on Marvin Minsky [1], WikiMind,

I've heard of Marvin Minsky recently as the mentor of W.DanielHillis who wrote ThePatternOnTheStone -- MartinNoutch

I can recommend TheSocietyOfMind? (1985), a book presented in one-page items, related with each other -- very much like web (or Wiki) pages. -- MarcGirod

CategoryPerson