Marvin’s world
As the age of artificial intelligence dawns, its creator bows out.
This year, at the World Economic Forum, founder Klaus Schwab signalled the beginning of a fourth industrial revolution at the interface of the physical world with cyberspace. Unfortunately, Marvin Minsky will not be around to see the phenomenon he helped to set in motion find its destiny. The intellectual father of the imminent revolution and co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s artificial intelligence laboratory, most of Minsky’s significant work and ideas date from before the microprocessor age. Indeed, he helped to create it by promoting the computer from the status of a talented abacus to that of a rival of the human mind. HAL 9000, the sentient computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, was based on his work.
Half a century after, the world is preparing to deal with the next level of computing, when billions of devices with infinite computing power will be perpetually connected by limitless bandwidth, re-imagining the very concept of data systems. Many elements of that world owe something to Minsky’s ideas — machine learning, expert systems, neural networks, cybernetics, robotics, big data, the internet of things, connected thermostats, the works. His philosophical ideas about intelligence and networks have touched everything from Turing computers to machine translation, and will crucially determine the development of civilisation.
Winner of the Turing Award and an iconic teacher, Minsky was one of the pioneers of the early silicon age, which, in retrospect, looks like a more rational world than ours. The stars of our times are start-up entrepreneurs, product designers and disruptive corporate strategists. While they are commendable for bringing new technologies and devices to market, there is insufficient public regard for the theorists and thinkers on whose shoulders they stand. As Minsky bows out, he reminds us that every disruptive technology begins with an abstract philosophical idea, which, on closer inspection, is revealed to be breathtaking.
