Minsky talks about life, love in the age of artificial intelligence

December 4, 2006

Computer science professor Marvin Minsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is known for feats that range from inventing the ultrahigh-resolution confocal microscope to helping found the field of artificial intelligence, which aims to create computers that mimic the human mind.
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After 20 years of publishing silence, he has just come out with a new book. Called "The Emotion Machine," it argues that, contrary to popular conception, emotions aren't distinct from rational thought; rather, they are simply another way of thinking, one that computers could perform. He spoke with Globe reporter Carey Goldberg.

Q So here you are, a pioneer of artificial intelligence, writing a book about emotions. What's going on?

A Somehow, most theories of how the mind works have gotten confused by trying to divide the mind in a simple way.

My view is that the reason we're so good at things is not that we have the best way but because we have so many ways, so when any one of them fails, you can switch to another way of thinking. So instead of thinking of the mind as basically a rational process which is distorted by emotion, or colored and made more exciting by emotion -- that's the conventional view -- emotions themselves are different ways to think. Being angry is a very useful way to solve problems, for instance, by intimidating an opponent or getting rid of people who bother you.

The theme of the book is really resourcefulness and why are people so much better at controlling the world than animals are? The argument is: because they have far more different ways to think than any competitor.

Q What, then, is the most important thing for us to understand about our own thinking?

A Your mind can work on several levels at once so, when you think about any particular subject, you also can think about the way you've been thinking -- and then use that experience to change yourself. Similarly, when you admire some teacher or leader, you can try to imitate their ways to think -- instead of just learning the things that they say.

Q What, in your view, is love?

A There's short-term infatuation, where someone gets strongly attracted to someone else, and that's probably very often a turning-off of certain things rather than something extra: It's a mental state where you remove your criticism. So to say someone is beautiful is not necessarily positive, it may be something happening so you can't see anything wrong with this person. And then there are long-term attachments, where you adopt the goals of the other person and somehow make serious changes in what you're going to do.

Q And what is the self?
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A We often imagine that there's a little person inside ourselves who makes our important decisions for us. However, a more useful idea is that you build many different models of yourself for dealing with different situations -- and each of those self-images can add to your resourcefulness.
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Q Are people machines? And how should we feel about that?

A We don't like to think of ourselves as machines because this evokes an outdated image of a clunky, mechanical, lifeless thing. We prefer the idea that inside ourselves is some sort of spirit, essence, or soul that wants and feels and thinks for us. However, your laptop computer has billions of parts, and it would be ridiculous to attribute all its abilities to some spirit inside its battery. And a human brain is far more complex than is any computer today.

Q So a machine can be made to have emotional states if it is programmed with the right ways to think?

A Yes, that is the view I take in this book, but to actually build machines like ourselves, we'll need to develop more theories about the kinds of resources that human minds use. Researchers in the field called artificial intelligence have already developed ways to make separate machines that can do various things that people can do. What's new in this book is that it suggests a new way to combine those older ideas.

However, there still is much more that we'll need to do before we can make machines that are as resourceful as we are, so this project will need some more years of support.

Q So, if your ideas about this could be carried out, how might that affect my everyday life?

A Soon the world will face a shortage of labor as people live longer and have fewer children. Our standards of living will sharply decline unless we can manage to make machines that have the common-sense human abilities that our industries will need.

Also, if we succeed at this, we'll develop new ideas about what happens inside our own minds -- and this should show us ways to improve some of our own ancient ways to think, as well as to enhance and extend the abilities of the machines we make.
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