Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!dimacs.rutgers.edu!mips!sdd.hp.com!think.com!mintaka!mit-eddie!media-lab!minsky From: minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: AI genealogy Keywords: genealogy Message-ID: <5510@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> Date: 14 Mar 91 05:45:13 GMT References: <2571@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> <31363@mimsy.umd.edu> Reply-To: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA Lines: 29 In article <31363@mimsy.umd.edu> hendler@dormouse.cs.umd.edu (Jim Hendler) writes: >some important way. For example, by your genealogy I'll be a >"grandchild" of an attendee of the Dartmouth Conference (MInsky -> >Charniak -> me), but Charniak had been on his own for a long time >before I came along. It is unclear how much effect, therefore, Minsky >still had on him (and thus on me). Further, my more recent students >are working on things that are more and more removed from what I did >as a grad, so their separation from Charniak (and thence Minsky) will >grow (in fact, most of them have never met either person). ... I noted in my well-known paper on Frames that Charniak's thesis discussed the activation, operation, and dismissal of expectation and default-knowledge demons -- and that "many of his ideas have been absorbed into this essay." I've always had a lot of ideas of "my own", but I've been really outstandingly good at learning from those so-called "students". I am somewhat dubious about the feasibility of tracing the ideas themselves, etc. However, I can see a good reason for carefully studying what happened in the vicinity of the small number of 1950 AI pioneers -- namely to understand why our laboratories were so productive. The simple answer is that many smart students recognized AI (and computer science) as important, but only a few older people did -- and so a lot of talent got concentrated in a few places, and achieved some sort of critical mass. The management styles may have been relevant, too. I got my "lab-ideal" image through Oliver Selfridge and Jerry Lettvin from Warren McCulloch. If that is important, then this is another geneology to examine. (Better do it quick. McCulloch has already left.)