Sussman's Enlightenmentt

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.

Sussman suddenly realized just how much of an asshole Minsky really was.

I never got this.

>>3
The irony is that the "fisher price computer" mentality is prevalent exclusively among trolls and idiots. In my experience, past a certain point, "experts in the field" use Apple products almost exclusively, whether the field is art, design, telecom, software development, or science.

>>3
The program still has preconceptions of how to play, even if Sussman doesn't know what they are.

>>4
What? how is that germane?

Minsky tries to empty the room by closing his eyes. The room is not empty, with his eyes closed Minsky just doesn't know who or what is in it. Much like when Sussman wires his net randomly, he does not know in what way the net will respond to the game, however it will respond in a unique and specific way. That specific way can be interpreted as a preconception.

there is no
room