Marvin Minsky, pioneer of artificial intelligence
Source: Cecilia Poole
He joined MIT's information science and electrical engineering department in 1958 and helped found the prestigious school's AI lab a year later. Beginning in the early 1950s, he worked on computational ideas to characterise human psychological processes and produced theories on how to endow machines with intelligence. Mr Minsky served in the U.S. navy during the Second World War before earning mathematics degrees from Harvard and Princeton. "The challenges he defined are still driving our quest for intelligent machines and inspiring researchers to push the boundaries in computer science". "Marvin was one of the very few people in computing whose visions and perspectives liberated the computer from being a glorified adding machine to start to realise its destiny as one of the most powerful amplifiers for human endeavours in history", said Alan Kay, a computer scientist and a friend and colleague of Mr. Minsky's. "His genius was so self-evident that it defined 'awesome.' The Lab bathed in his reflected light". Minsky's greatest contribution to computers and artificial intelligence was the notion that neither human nor machine intelligence is a single process. He was also involved in the inventions of the first "turtle", or cursor, for the LOGO programming language, with Seymour Papert, and the "Muse" synthesizer for musical variations, with Ed Fredkin. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - A pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who saw parallels in the functioning of the human brain and computers has died. He's even been the recipient of the coveted AM Turing Award in 1969, the highest honour one can receive in the field of computer science. He also developed a microscope and wrote several books related to artificial intelligence, technology, and how computers could become smarter over time.
| }
|