[ExI] Minsky has died

[David Lubkin]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/business/marvin-minsky-pioneer-in-artificial-intelligence-dies-at-88.html 


I knew Marvin was in poor health. And he was 88. And I really didn't 
know him that well. But somehow this news is more of a gut punch than 
the other deaths this month, even as I'm making plans to go to David 
Hartwell's funeral. Maybe it's the cumulative effect.

Marvin was of the three people Asimov ever conceded was smarter than 
he was. Which is a pretty good achievement. (Fred Pohl was another. 
Sometimes he swapped in a third name.)

I think I first met him in 1980, in the SFWA Suite at the World 
Science Fiction Convention (aka Worldcon, specifically Noreascon 2).

He had decided to study humor. And developed a theory that, he 
proudly expounded, explained jokes that prior theories couldn't. 
Marvin told one. It wasn't funny.

I thought *that* was funny. Or maybe meta-funny.


-- David.