Marvin Minsky Quotes

Quotes about:

• You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way.

  Marvin Minsky

  Education, Learning, Knowledge

  "Managing an Information Security and Privacy Awareness and Training Program". Book by Rebecca Herold, 2005.

  80 Copy quote

• Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men.

  Marvin Minsky

  Men, Machines, Done

  "Reflections on Artificial Intelligence". Book by Blay Whitby, 1996.

  57 Copy quote

• No computer has ever been designed that is ever aware of what it's doing; but most of the time, we aren't either.

  Marvin Minsky

  Technology, Computer

  42 Copy quote

• If you understand something in only one way, then you don't really understand it at all. The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we've connected it to all other things we know. Well-connected representations let you turn ideas around in your mind, to envision things from many perspectives until you find one that works for you. And that's what we mean by thinking!

  Marvin Minsky

  Motivational, Mean, Thinking

  68 Copy quote

• Once the computers got control, we might never get it back. We would survive at their sufferance. If we're lucky, they might decide to keep us as pets.

  Marvin Minsky

  Pet, Lucky, Might

  Life Magazine, November 20, 1970.

  9 Copy quote

• Will robots inherit the earth? Yes, but they will be our children.

  Marvin Minsky

  Children, Robots, Earth

  "Will Robots Inherit the Earth?". Scientific American, web.media.mit.edu. October 1994.

  18 Copy quote

• But the big feature of human-level intelligence is not what it does when it is works but what it does when it's stuck.

  Marvin Minsky

  Doe, Levels, Bigs

  8 Copy quote

• What is intelligence, anyway It is only a word that people use to name those unknown processes with which our brains solve problems we call hard. But whenever you learn a skill yourself, you're less impressed or mystified when other people do the same. This is why the meaning of 'intelligence' seems so elusive: It describes not some definite thing but only the momentary horizon of our ignorance about how minds might work.

  Marvin Minsky

  Ignorance, Skills, Names

  40 Copy quote

• One can acquire certainty only by amputating inquiry.

  Marvin Minsky

  Inquiry, Certainty, Acquire

  Marvin Minsky (1988). “Society Of Mind”, p.65, Simon and Schuster

  11 Copy quote

• Everything is similar if you're willing to look far out of focus.

  Marvin Minsky

  Focus, Looks, Willing

  8 Copy quote

• I bet the human brain is a kludge

  Marvin Minsky

  Humorous, Brain, Human Brain

  30 Copy quote

• The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we've connected it to all the other things we know. That's why it's almost always wrong to seek the "real meaning" of anything. A thing with just one meaning has scarcely any meaning at all.

  Marvin Minsky

  Real, Mean, Secret

  29 Copy quote

• We'll show you that you can build a mind from many little parts, each mindless by itself.

  Marvin Minsky

  Mind, Littles, Mindless

  "The Society of Mind". Book by Marvin Minsky, 1986.

  33 Copy quote

• Within 10 years computers won't even keep us as pets.

  Marvin Minsky

  Years, Pet, Computer

  37 Copy quote

• In general, we’re least aware of what our minds do best.

  Marvin Minsky

  Mind, Rationality

  Marvin Minsky (1988). “Society Of Mind”, p.29, Simon and Schuster

  15 Copy quote

• Common sense is not a simple thing. Instead, it is an immense society of hard-earned practical ideas - of multitudes of life-learned rules and exceptions, dispositions and tendencies, balances and checks.

  Marvin Minsky

  Simple, Ideas, Common Sense

  Marvin Minsky (1988). “Society Of Mind”, p.22, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

• Logic doesn't apply to the real world.

  Marvin Minsky

  Real, Knowledge, Math

  11 Copy quote

• Anyone could learn Lisp in one day, except that if they already knew Fortran, it would take three days.

  Marvin Minsky

  One Day, Three, Ifs

  34 Copy quote

• Societies need rules that make no sense for individuals. For example, it makes no difference whether a single car drives on the left or on the right. But it makes all the difference when there are many cars!

  Marvin Minsky

  Differences, Car, Example

  22 Copy quote

• You don't understand anything unless you understand there are at least 3 ways.

  Marvin Minsky

  Creativity, Innovation, Way

  20 Copy quote

• We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door.

  Marvin Minsky

  Mistake, Eye, Doors

  Marvin Minsky (1988). “Society Of Mind”, p.308, Simon and Schuster

  28 Copy quote

• In science, one learns the most by studying what seems to be the least.

  Marvin Minsky

  Study, Seems

  10 Copy quote

• Computer languages of the future will be more concerned with goals and less with procedures specified by the programmer.

  Marvin Minsky

  Goal, Language, Computer

  Turing Award Lectures Year Awarded 1969, dl.acm.org. 2007.

  11 Copy quote

• It's ridiculous to live 100 years and only be able to remember 30 million bytes. You know, less than a compact disc. The human condition is really becoming more obsolete every minute.

  Marvin Minsky

  Technology, Years, Able

  23 Copy quote

• Speed is what distinguishes intelligence. No bird discovers how to fly: evolution used a trillion bird-years to 'discover' that – where merely hundreds of person-years sufficed.

  Marvin Minsky

  Years, Bird, Evolution

  "Communication with Alien Intelligence". Published in "Extraterrestrials: Science and Alien Intelligence" (Edward Regis, Ed.), web.media.mit.edu. 1985.

  10 Copy quote

Page 1 of 3

← Prev

1

2

3

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin