Isaac Asimov, a scientist turned hard sci-fi writer, once remarked that the only people he ever felt overshadowed him in intelligence were Carl Sagan and Marvin Minsky. While the former is well known for his work popularizing astronomy, planetary science, and astrobiology, the other was a more obscure figure.

Minsky died on Sunday at age 88, suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. His work primarily involved artificial intelligence systems, writing some of the foundational texts of the discipline and building one of the first "artificial brains" in 1951.The Stochastic Neural-Analog Reinforcement Computer, or SNARC, was capable of machine learning at a time when most computers still ran on punchcards. He also created one of the first head-mounted graphical displays, a predecessor to today's inventions like the Oculus or Gear VR.

In 1954, he completed his dissertation at Princeton, writing "Neural Nets and the Brain Model Problem," tackling some of the machine learning theories to come. His work on neural nets continued even after they went out of fashion in computing, though they've seen a recent resurgence in popularity with the widespread availability of cloud computing.

Minsky eventually made a home in 1958 at MIT as a math professor before founding the Artificial Intelligence Project and co-directing the Artificial Intelligence Lab from 1959 to 1974. He stayed at the university until recent years. He was the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences from 1990 on.

A 1961 paper, "Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence," laid out the road map for machine learning, and is still considered one of the most important texts in artificial intelligence today. In books like Society of Mind, he delved into the inner workings of the human brain, and many of his writings tried to compare and contrast a human brain from the robotic brains to come, and even wrote a paper on how we might be able to make contact with alien civilizations some day in a productive fashion.

Minsky skirted the line between theorist, inventor, and philosopher, working with delicate technological systems while staring firmly into the future of computing. Along with his early AI headseat and artificial brain, Minsky also invented scanning microscopes, synthesizers, robot arms, and early programmable toys.

Source: MIT

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