This week in The History of AI at AIWS.net – Marvin Minsky was quoted in Life magazine, “In from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being”

This week in The History of AI at AIWS.net – in 1970 Marvin Minsky was quoted in Life magazine, “In from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being.”

Marvin Minsky was interviewed by Life magazine in 1970 by journalist Brad Darrach, who was writing an article on Shakey the Dog, an early mobile robot built at Stanford. Minsky made this bold claim, and further added on that “If we’re lucky, they might decide to keep us as pets.” This statement was meant as a warning to not let intelligence computers control vital systems. 

Marvin Minksy was an important pioneer in the field of AI. He penned the research proposal for the Dartmouth Conference, which coined the term “Artificial Intelligence”, and he was a participant in it when it was hosted the next summer. Minsky would also co-founded the MIT AI labs, which went through different names, and the MIT Media Laboratory. In terms of popular culture, he was an adviser to Stanley Kubrick’s acclaimed movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. He won the Turing Award for his influence on AI in 1969.

Marvin Minsky’s quote and this interview highlighted the popularity and mainstream attention AI have received in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Furthermore, Marvin Minsky was one, if not the, most important figure in the development of Artificial Intelligence. His writings and sayings during the rise of AI in the 60s are still deliberated about to this day.