Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American

cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

and

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

concerned largely with research of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

(AI), co-founder of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

's AI laboratory, and author of several texts concerning AI and philosophy. Minsky received many accolades and honors, including the 1969

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...

Biography

Marvin Lee Minsky was born in New York City, to an

eye surgeon Eye surgery, also known as ophthalmic or ocular surgery, is surgery performed on the eye or its adnexa, by an ophthalmologist or sometimes, an optometrist. Eye surgery is synonymous with ophthalmology. The eye is a very fragile organ, and requ ...

father, Henry, and to a mother, Fannie (Reiser), who was a

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

activist. His family was Jewish. He attended the

Ethical Culture Fieldston School Ethical Culture Fieldston School (ECFS), also referred to as Fieldston, is a private independent school in New York City. The school is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League. The school serves approximately 1,700 students with 480 facult ...

and the

Bronx High School of Science The Bronx High School of Science, commonly called Bronx Science, is a public specialized high school in The Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science involves passing the Spec ...

. He later attended

Phillips Academy ("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness , address = 180 Main Street , city = Andover , state = Ma ...

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia * Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Ando ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. He then served in the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

from 1944 to 1945. He received a B.A. in mathematics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1950 and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in mathematics from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1954. His doctoral dissertation was titled "Theory of neural-analog reinforcement systems and its application to the brain-model problem." He was a Junior Fellow of the

Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

from 1954 to 1957. He was on the

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

faculty from 1958 to his death. He joined the staff at

MIT Lincoln Laboratory The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and dev ...

in 1958, and a year later he and John McCarthy initiated what is, , named the

MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

. He was the Toshiba Professor of

Media Arts New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D pri ...

and Sciences, and professor of

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

Contributions in computer science

Confocal measurement of 1-euro-star 3d and euro

Minsky's inventions include the first head-mounted graphical display (1963) and the

confocal microscope Confocal microscopy, most frequently confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) or laser confocal scanning microscopy (LCSM), is an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a sp ...

(1957, a predecessor to today's widely used

confocal laser scanning microscope Confocal microscopy, most frequently confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) or laser confocal scanning microscopy (LCSM), is an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a sp ...

). He developed, with

Seymour Papert Seymour Aubrey Papert (; 29 February 1928 – 31 July 2016) was a South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist, and educator, who spent most of his career teaching and researching at MIT. He was one of the pioneers of artificial ...

, the first

Logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...

". Minsky also built, in 1951, the first randomly wired neural network learning machine, SNARC. In 1962, Minsky worked in small

universal Turing machine In computer science, a universal Turing machine (UTM) is a Turing machine that can simulate an arbitrary Turing machine on arbitrary input. The universal machine essentially achieves this by reading both the description of the machine to be simu ...

s and published his well-known 7-state, 4-symbol machine. Minsky's book ''

Perceptrons In machine learning, the perceptron (or McCulloch-Pitts neuron) is an algorithm for supervised learning of binary classifiers. A binary classifier is a function which can decide whether or not an input, represented by a vector of numbers, belon ...

'' (written with Seymour Papert) attacked the work of

Frank Rosenblatt Frank Rosenblatt (July 11, 1928July 11, 1971) was an American psychologist notable in the field of artificial intelligence. He is sometimes called the father of deep learning. Life and career Rosenblatt was born in New Rochelle, New York as son o ...

, and became the foundational work in the analysis of

artificial neural network Artificial neural networks (ANNs), usually simply called neural networks (NNs) or neural nets, are computing systems inspired by the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains. An ANN is based on a collection of connected unit ...

s. The book is the center of a controversy in the history of AI, as some claim it to have had great importance in discouraging research of neural networks in the 1970s, and contributing to the so-called "

AI winter In the history of artificial intelligence, an AI winter is a period of reduced funding and interest in artificial intelligence research. Minsky also wrote of the possibility that

extraterrestrial life Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...

may think like humans, permitting communication. In the early 1970s, at the

Artificial Intelligence Lab, Minsky and Papert started developing what came to be known as the

Society of Mind ''The Society of Mind'' is both the title of a 1986 book and the name of a theory of natural intelligence as written and developed by Marvin Minsky. In his book of the same name, Minsky constructs a model of human intelligence step by step, bui ...

theory. The theory attempts to explain how what we call intelligence could be a product of the interaction of non-intelligent parts. Minsky says that the biggest source of ideas about the theory came from his work in trying to create a machine that uses a robotic arm, a video camera, and a computer to build with children's blocks. In 1986, Minsky published ''The Society of Mind'', a comprehensive book on the theory which, unlike most of his previously published work, was written for the general public. In November 2006, Minsky published ''

The Emotion Machine ''The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind'' is a 2006 book by cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky that elaborates and expands on Minsky's ideas as presented in his earlier book ''Society of ...

'', a book that critiques many popular theories of how human minds work and suggests alternative theories, often replacing simple ideas with more complex ones. Recent drafts of the book are freely available from his webpage.

Role in popular culture

Minsky was an adviser on

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...

's movie ''2001: A Space Odyssey''; one of the movie's characters, Victor Kaminski, was named in Minsky's honor. Minsky is mentioned explicitly in

Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film '' 2001: A Spac ...

's derivative novel of the same name, where he is portrayed as achieving a crucial break-through in artificial intelligence in the then-future 1980s, paving the way for

HAL 9000 HAL 9000 is a fictional artificial intelligence character and the main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's ''Space Odyssey'' series. First appearing in the 1968 film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'', HAL ( Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer ...

in the early 21st century: In Fargo Season 3 episode 3 (titled "

The Law of Non-Contradiction "The Law of Non-Contradiction" is the third episode of the third season of the FX anthology series '' Fargo'', and the twenty-third episode of the series overall. It was directed by series executive producer John Cameron, and written by Matt Wol ...

"), at least two allusions are made to Minsky. The first, through the depiction of a "

useless machine A useless machine or useless box is a device which has a function but its direct purpose is deliberately unknown. The best-known useless machines are those inspired by Marvin Minsky's design, in which the device's sole function is to switch itsel ...

": a device that was invented by Minsky as a philosophical joke. The second, through the depiction of an animation of a robot called "minsky" - a character in a sci-fi novel called "The Planet Wyh".

Personal life

In 1952, Minsky married pediatrician Gloria Rudisch; together they had three children. Minsky was a talented improvisational pianist who published musings on the relations between music and psychology.

Opinions

Minsky was an atheist. He was a signatory to the Scientists' Open Letter on

Cryonics Cryonics (from el, κρύος ''kryos'' meaning 'cold') is the low-temperature freezing (usually at ) and storage of human remains, with the speculative hope that resurrection may be possible in the future. Cryonics is regarded with skepticis ...

. He was a critic of the

Loebner Prize The Loebner Prize was an annual competition in artificial intelligence that awards prizes to the computer programs considered by the judges to be the most human-like. The prize is reported as defunct since 2020. The format of the competition was tha ...

for conversational robots, and argued that a fundamental difference between

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

s and

machine A machine is a physical system using Power (physics), power to apply Force, forces and control Motion, movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to na ...

s was that while humans are machines, they are machines in which intelligence emerges from the interplay of the many unintelligent but semi-autonomous agents that comprise the brain. He argued that "somewhere down the line, some computers will become more intelligent than most people," but that it was very hard to predict how fast progress would be. He cautioned that an artificial

superintelligence A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds. "Superintelligence" may also refer to a property of problem-solving systems (e.g., superintelligent language ...

designed to solve an innocuous mathematical problem might decide to assume control of Earth's resources to build supercomputers to help achieve its goal, but believed that such negative scenarios are "hard to take seriously" because he felt confident that AI would go through a lot of testing before being deployed.

Association with Jeffrey Epstein

Minsky received a $100,000 research grant from

Jeffrey Epstein Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American sex offender and financier. Epstein, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, began his professional life by teaching at the Dalton School in Manhattan, des ...

in 2002, four years before Epstein's first arrest for sex offenses; it was the first from Epstein to MIT. Minsky received no further research grants from him. Minsky organized two academic symposia on Epstein's private island Little Saint James, one in 2002 and another in 2011, after Epstein was a registered sex offender.

Virginia Giuffre Virginia Louise Giuffre (''née'' Roberts; born August 9, 1983) is an American-Australian campaigner who offers support to victims of sex trafficking. She is an alleged victim of the sex trafficking ring of Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre created Vict ...

testified in a 2015 deposition in her defamation lawsuit against Epstein's associate

Ghislaine Maxwell Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell ( ; born 25 December 1961) is a British convicted sex offender and former socialite. In 2021, she was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with the financier and convicted sex o ...

that Maxwell "directed" her to have sex with Minsky among others. There has been no allegation that sex between them took place nor a lawsuit against Minsky's estate. Minsky's widow, Gloria Rudisch, says that he could not have had sex with any of the women at Epstein's residences, as they were always together during all of the visits to Epstein's residences.

Death

In January 2016 Minsky died of a cerebral hemorrhage, at the age of 88. Minsky was a member of

Alcor Life Extension Foundation The Alcor Life Extension Foundation, most often referred to as Alcor, is an American nonprofit, federally tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization based in Scottsdale, Arizona, United States. Alcor advocates for, researches, and performs cryonics, the ...

's Scientific

Advisory Board An advisory board is a body that provides non-binding strategic advice to the management of a corporation, organization, or foundation. The informal nature of an advisory board gives greater flexibility in structure and management compared to th ...

. Alcor will neither confirm nor deny whether Minsky was cryonically preserved.

Bibliography (selected)

* 1967 – ''Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines'', Prentice-Hall * 1986 – ''The

'' * 2006 – ''

: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind''

Awards and affiliations

Minsky won the

(the greatest distinction in computer science) in 1969, the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...

in 1982, the

Japan Prize is awarded to people from all parts of the world whose "original and outstanding achievements in science and technology are recognized as having advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind." The P ...

in 1990, the

IJCAI Award for Research Excellence The IJCAI Award for Research Excellence is a biannual award before given at the IJCAI conference to researcher in artificial intelligence as a recognition of excellence of their career. Beginning in 2016, the conference is held annually and so is ...

for 1991, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...

for 2001.Marvin Minsky – The Franklin Institute Awards – Laureate Database
.

. Retrieved on March 25, 2008. In 2006, he was inducted as a Fellow of the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on ...

"for co-founding the field of artificial intelligence, creating early neural networks and robots, and developing theories of human and machine cognition." In 2011, Minsky was inducted into

IEEE Intelligent Systems ''IEEE Intelligent Systems'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the IEEE Computer Society and sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), British Computer Society (BCS), and European As ...

' AI Hall of Fame for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems". In 2014, Minsky won the

Dan David Prize The Dan David Prize is a major international award that recognizes and supports outstanding contributions to the study of history and other disciplines that shed light on the human past. It awards nine prizes of $300,000 each year to outstanding ...

for "

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

, the Digital Mind". He was also awarded with the 2013

BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards () are an international award programme recognizing significant contributions in the areas of scientific research and cultural creation. The categories that make up the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards ...

in the Information and Communication Technologies category. Minsky was affiliated with the following organizations: *

United States National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

United States National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Extropy Institute Extropianism, also referred to as the philosophy of extropy, is an "evolving framework of values and standards for continuously improving the human condition". Extropians believe that advances in science and technology will some day let people l ...

's Council of Advisors *

's Scientific Advisory Board * kynamatrix Research Network's Board of Directors

Media appearances

* Future Fantastic (1996) * Machine Dreams (1988)

Notes

References

External links

Oral history interview with Marvin Minsky
at

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, Minneapolis. Minsky describes

(AI) research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Topics include: the work of John McCarthy; changes in the MIT research laboratories with the advent of Project MAC; research in the areas of

expert systems In artificial intelligence, an expert system is a computer system emulating the decision-making ability of a human expert. Expert systems are designed to solve complex problems by reasoning through bodies of knowledge, represented mainly as if� ...

, graphics, word processing, and

time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence a ...

; variations in the

Advanced Research Projects Agency The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

(ARPA) attitude toward AI.
Oral history interview with Terry Winograd
at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Winograd describes his work in computer science, linguistics, and artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), discussing the work of Marvin Minsky and others.

Appearance on WMBR's

'' radio show November 26, 2003
Consciousness Is A Big Suitcase: A talk with Marvin Minsky

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060829135040/http://www.edge.org/video/dsl/EF02_minsky.html "The Emotion Universe": Video with Marvin Minsky
Marvin Minsky's thoughts on the Fermi Paradox at the Transvisions 2007 conference

: Marvin Minsky talk at the

TED TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...

conference
"The Society of Mind"
on MIT OpenCourseWare
Marvin Minsky
tells his life story at

Web of Stories Web of Stories is an online collection of thousands of autobiographical video-stories. Web of Stories, originally known as Science Archive, was set up to record the life stories of scientists. When it expanded to include the lives of authors, mov ...

(video) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Minsky, Marvin 1927 births 2016 deaths Jewish American atheists American computer scientists 20th-century American Jews United States Navy personnel of World War II Artificial intelligence researchers American consciousness researchers and theorists Cryonically preserved people Ethical Culture Fieldston School alumni Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Harvard College alumni Harvard Fellows Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Phillips Academy alumni Princeton University alumni Scientists from New York City The Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science laureates The Bronx High School of Science alumni Turing Award laureates Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society MIT Lincoln Laboratory people MIT Media Lab people Presidents of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence 21st-century American Jews