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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

by osswid 4y ago

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." "Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play" Minsky shut his eyes, "Why do you close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher. "So that the room will be empty." At that momment, Sussman was enlightened. -- AI koan

thegabriele 4y ago
I keep on stumbling on this story, yet i can't seem to be able to grasp it. We have senses so our brain has some sort of a priori knowledge of the world? We're all almost blind when we born.
- michannne 4y ago
  The point of Minsky's action is to demonstrate to Sussman that Sussman's intent is essentially "if you can't see it, it's not there", but of course the room doesn't become empty when Minsky closes his eyes - the neural net won't lose preconceptions just because you randomly wired it, you just lose the ability to see and control what those preconceptions are.
osswid 4y ago
Minsky and Sussman slaving away in front of that apocryphal PDP-10 in 1970. And 50 years later…last November..suddenly BOOM. Everything they yearned for comes into view.
G_z9 4y ago
This allegory has haunted me for ten years. I always see it posted here and invariably the poster doesn’t elaborate or explain at all. Im pretty sure the people who post this just do it to look smart. I can’t find an explanation anywhere on the web. I asked chatgtp what it means and it said this: This allegory, often referred to as an "AI koan," is a story that conveys a deeper meaning about the nature of artificial intelligence and the process of learning. In the story, Sussman is a novice who is attempting to train a neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe. When Minsky, a renowned AI researcher, asks why the net is wired randomly, Sussman responds that he does not want the net to have any preconceptions of how to play. Minsky then closes his eyes, explaining that he is doing so in order to empty the room. The meaning of this story is open to interpretation, but one possible interpretation is that it is highlighting the importance of approaching problems with an open mind, free of preconceived notions and biases. By wiring the neural net randomly, Sussman is allowing it to learn through trial and error, without being constrained by prior assumptions about the game. Similarly, by closing his eyes, Minsky is symbolically "emptying the room" of preconceptions and biases, allowing himself to approach the problem with fresh eyes and an open mind. Overall, the story encourages us to approach complex problems with a beginner's mind, free of preconceptions and biases, in order to allow for creative solutions and new insights to emerge. Back to human commentary: I’m not sure that makes sense. will someone please explain this stupid allegory and let me finally rest?
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  I can't speak to the technical details but my basic interpretation was the opposite of what ChatGPT just said - no real-world agent ever approaches a problem with zero preconceptions. That's simply not how learning works for humans. Presumably AI models also have 'preconceptions' at least in how they are designed.
- G_z9 4y ago
  Maybe Marvin is saying that there might be advantageous patterns in the random values, and that the researcher is only selecting for what he can see but not necessarily what exists, since many chess algorithms might just look like random noise to a human. So the point of the allegory is that intelligence is much broader algorithmically than what human intuition is able to grasp.
- kgwgk 4y ago
  I take it to mean that a random wiring still represents some (random) preconception even though we don’t know it - just like the world still exists when you close your eyes even if you don’t see it. I could be getting it wrong, maybe ChatGPT is more intelligent than me…
- krackers 4y ago
  I think you have to loosely interpret "randomly wired" as "fully connected", i.e. no predefined structure (because an actually randomly wired net probably wouldn't learn well). The thing is as we've seen with convnets and now transformers, the structure of the network actually matters quite a bit. Even though a fully connected network could theoretically learn the right weights so that it emulates a convnet, in practice this is too hard to do. See the discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34748190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34748190
- tempodox 4y ago
  The way the net is wired is the preconception. Just as closing your eyes doesn't actually empty the room, randomizing the preconception doesn't make it go away.
- ayewo 4y ago

by osswid 4y ago

thegabriele 4y ago

I keep on stumbling on this story, yet i can't seem to be able to grasp it. We have senses so our brain has some sort of a priori knowledge of the world? We're all almost blind when we born.

michannne 4y ago
The point of Minsky's action is to demonstrate to Sussman that Sussman's intent is essentially "if you can't see it, it's not there", but of course the room doesn't become empty when Minsky closes his eyes - the neural net won't lose preconceptions just because you randomly wired it, you just lose the ability to see and control what those preconceptions are.

osswid 4y ago

Minsky and Sussman slaving away in front of that apocryphal PDP-10 in 1970. And 50 years later…last November..suddenly BOOM. Everything they yearned for comes into view.

G_z9 4y ago

This allegory has haunted me for ten years. I always see it posted here and invariably the poster doesn’t elaborate or explain at all. Im pretty sure the people who post this just do it to look smart. I can’t find an explanation anywhere on the web. I asked chatgtp what it means and it said this: This allegory, often referred to as an "AI koan," is a story that conveys a deeper meaning about the nature of artificial intelligence and the process of learning. In the story, Sussman is a novice who is attempting to train a neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe. When Minsky, a renowned AI researcher, asks why the net is wired randomly, Sussman responds that he does not want the net to have any preconceptions of how to play. Minsky then closes his eyes, explaining that he is doing so in order to empty the room. The meaning of this story is open to interpretation, but one possible interpretation is that it is highlighting the importance of approaching problems with an open mind, free of preconceived notions and biases. By wiring the neural net randomly, Sussman is allowing it to learn through trial and error, without being constrained by prior assumptions about the game. Similarly, by closing his eyes, Minsky is symbolically "emptying the room" of preconceptions and biases, allowing himself to approach the problem with fresh eyes and an open mind. Overall, the story encourages us to approach complex problems with a beginner's mind, free of preconceptions and biases, in order to allow for creative solutions and new insights to emerge. Back to human commentary: I’m not sure that makes sense. will someone please explain this stupid allegory and let me finally rest?

bigDinosaur 4y ago
I can't speak to the technical details but my basic interpretation was the opposite of what ChatGPT just said - no real-world agent ever approaches a problem with zero preconceptions. That's simply not how learning works for humans. Presumably AI models also have 'preconceptions' at least in how they are designed.
G_z9 4y ago
Maybe Marvin is saying that there might be advantageous patterns in the random values, and that the researcher is only selecting for what he can see but not necessarily what exists, since many chess algorithms might just look like random noise to a human. So the point of the allegory is that intelligence is much broader algorithmically than what human intuition is able to grasp.
kgwgk 4y ago
I take it to mean that a random wiring still represents some (random) preconception even though we don’t know it - just like the world still exists when you close your eyes even if you don’t see it. I could be getting it wrong, maybe ChatGPT is more intelligent than me…
krackers 4y ago
I think you have to loosely interpret "randomly wired" as "fully connected", i.e. no predefined structure (because an actually randomly wired net probably wouldn't learn well). The thing is as we've seen with convnets and now transformers, the structure of the network actually matters quite a bit. Even though a fully connected network could theoretically learn the right weights so that it emulates a convnet, in practice this is too hard to do. See the discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34748190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34748190
tempodox 4y ago
The way the net is wired is the preconception. Just as closing your eyes doesn't actually empty the room, randomizing the preconception doesn't make it go away.
ayewo 4y ago