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David_Gerard comments on [draft] Concepts are Difficult, and Unfriendliness is the Default: A Scary Idea Summary - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 31 March 2012 10:07AM

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Comment author: David_Gerard 01 April 2012 08:16:21PM -1 points [-]

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.

-- AI Koans