Father of AI

Marvin Minsky on YouTube discusses the history of his work. Minsky [1927-2016] was the founder of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, and a key figure in Artificial Intelligence's early development. He was a central figure in highly nuanced [meaning I don't understand them] academic controversies around nerual nets and symbolic logic.

He was initially inspired by reading a book on mathematical biophysics by Nicholas Rashevsky. This book provided mathematical decription of biological functions. [which would as described seem to foretell soon brewing cybernetic theories, I'd add]. 

He was also moved  by the science fiction of H.G. Wells. He liked sci-fi, he said, because the authors made guesses about the future, and that seems to map to what researchers do. He invited Ray Bradbury to his lab once to view the robotics. Bradbury demurred - he didn't want to see clunky real robots - it would cloud his imagination. Minsky more or less admitted these first-take MIT robots were clunky.

He must have been a great student - as he pursued his education, and then, research - he was soon to encounter ["had lunch with"] prominent scientists at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton, including Einstein, Oppenheimer

Per a Gemini distillation 

Minsky made the connection between neuroscience and AI, initially believing that understanding neuron function would lead to AI. However, he later realized that current theories were insufficient and shifted his focus to developing new theories of how the nervous system worked.

This progress is not fully clear to me, nor whether Gemini has it right.

Like many others my big experience with Minsky's thinking came mainly from reading The Society of Mind. There are many interesting moments in the video. One: He seems to blame politicians who cut back on basic research funding by the US military for the AI winter, saying money dried up for young public academic researchers [he also notes that old professors stood in the young 'uns way to making a living in academia] and that the breakups of monopolies hurt private research funding.

Minksy lived not far from me, over the border from Boston, in Brookline. One Summer Saturday driving thru the Chestnut Hills, I encountered him, that is, I saw him, an older fellow by then, edging his old Volvo gingerly out and thru a crossing. I immediately thought about the cognition that required.