[FRIAM] hacker koan

[Marcus Daniels]

Meaning, what, exactly?


  1.  That there is game with rules
  2.  That there is a microprocessor and program with a certain order of operations (or not)
  3.  That there are precision limitations
  4.  That it is one class of neural net out of a family of possible architectures?  (At the time it was probably single layer neural nets.)

I wonder why Minsky decided to be vague?  Why is Sussman's desire to avoid engineering a solution not an appropriate concern?   Still to this day there is not really a science on how to choose a neural net connectivity.  How many random leave-outs, how many skip-level links, etc.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Friday, December 4, 2020 8:48 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] hacker koan

In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once
  came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
"What are you doing?" asked Minsky.
"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play
  Tic-Tac-Toe," Sussman replied.
"Why is the net wired randomly?" asked Minsky.
"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play,"
   Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes.
"Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher.
"So that the room will be empty."

At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.


davew
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