[ExI] Minsky has died

[Giulio Prisco]

Very sad news.

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 2:04 AM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
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