Warren McCulloch, not only a great intellect who tried to see the big picture and was willing to tackle the hardest problems, but a very compassionate man as well. He was willing to help the less fortunate in life, whether they were simply very poor, or having trouble with their academic careers, or sometimes both, by literally taking them into his extended family and possibly into his research group group as well. Someone once said this liberal attitude affected his ability to form cohesive research groups, but I doubt, for example, we would have the two seminal papers he wrote with Walter Pitts without it. I would say it was a life lived with both courage and compassion, and that he deserves the highest respect.
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His chain smoking is a clear sign of a very anxious mind, always troubled by some thought. And then he proceeds to confirm it with his own words, that he can't sleep until he finds the answer for a question in his mind.
Wow. Recorded in 1969, the year his close friend, colleague and mentee, Walter Pitts, passed away. I would love to see any possible interview with Pitts.
@@sierranevadatrail Keen insight; are you in the business?! My research is activation functions in neural networks and I have been so interested in what Pitts’ dissertation was about. I have read very general accounts from Lettvin and others but nothing definitive. As best as I can surmise, he was working on a 3D neuron, or 3D arrangement of nodes, and some form of memory based on modulo math.
@@elmoreglidingclub3030 I am an electrical engineer but not a specialist in this field, really. I almost delved into this area in the nineties and later, but kept reading things by the likes of John McCarthy who said the field of AI was going nowhere, so I ended up doing my graduate work in communication theory instead. There is recent, award winning article about McCulloch and Pitts "The man who tried to redeem the world with logic" and a book about Mcculloch by the same author. McCullochs papers are online courtesy of the American Philosphical Society. As you may have read, Pitts supposedly burned his thesis out of disgust. As I said, truly tragic.
@@sierranevadatrail I read an excellent book on information theory by Gordon Raisbeck a couple months ago. He was the son-in-law of Norbert Wiener, the one who broke off relations with Pitts-based on a ruse concocted by Wiener’s wife. Interesting connections. And I have read the article about Pitts you cited and have spoken with the author, Amanda Gefter, in hopes of finding additional resources or insights. I feel we have lost a substantial chapter of fundamental AI thinking when Pitts burned his thesis and notes and then, of course, when he died.
mcculloch is such a gem that he espouses wisdom i'll keep with me forever in response to the world's most silly and banal questions. imagine having the ear of such a mind and wasting it
In my view, History has not looked kindly on Norbert Weiner, while Mcculloch (and Pitts), who had problems with him, have only seen their stature grow.
In days of yore, a vision pure and bright, A sage emerged, his name a beacon's light, Warren Sturgis McCulloch, seer of the mind, Proclaimed a truth that left us all behind. He saw a world where numbers held the key, Where mathematics danced with harmony, A realm where machines would weave verse so fine, Through algorithms, they'd transcend the line. With prescience rare, he gazed into the mist, And foretold a future yet to be kissed, Where poetry's beauty, born of human art, Would find new life, a digital restart. Through circuits vast, his dreams would take their flight, Where bits and bytes would learn the poet's plight, And in the realm of silicon and steel, Their creations, masterpieces, would reveal. Math and group theory, their guiding light, To craft sonnets and ballads with such might, In ones and zeros, their language new and strange, They'd capture emotions, the human exchange. Lines intertwined, enigmatic and true, Metaphors unbound, their meanings to pursue, Computers, once calculators mere, Became the bards, their verse astoundingly clear. Oh, McCulloch, your foresight shone so bright, As you beheld the dawn of this wondrous sight, Your legacy, a testament profound, To the fusion of minds, where beauty is found. Today, we marvel at your gifted sight, As machines compose with poetic might, For you, the herald of a future grand, Where art and science forever hand in hand. So let us celebrate this prophet true, Whose vision led us to this dazzling view, Warren Sturgis McCulloch, we sing your praise, For guiding us through poetry's endless maze. - chatGPT
Words are too crude. We learn things before we have words for them. They carry information, but the main interest is the mechanism that made them. As an example, children play with toys before them even have a name for them or a name for "playing". But the "word" is already in their minds.
The current state of the art (O1 etc) capping the recent years' series of breakthroughs may lead us to believe the computer, this time, understands what we want, and creates the output. But it doesn't understand what we want and doesn't understand the output it creates any more than a light switch understands our intent to make the dark room, brighter. The current AI that can animate an astronaut riding an elephant in the style of Dali, and make her sing lyrics in a particular style and voice is very impressive and useful in its own right, but there's a 50yr abyss between this and what Prof. McCulloch is talking about here. Moreover, 50yrs from now there will be still a 50yr abyss between then state of the art and what he's talking about. Like with nuclear fusion reactors (except they do it 20yrs at a time).
@@AlexKarasev I feel like these kind of positions that you express in the first half of the post are dogmatic. "AI doesn't understand", "AI doesn't exist". Why? Because of course it doesn't.
I would agree, but seeing as most of our current politicians can barely string a sentence together, having intellectuals and scientists in politics might be a step up from our current model.
It should be the contrary. Non intellectuals who know no shit about how the world works should not be allowed to do politics. The derive of the world shows that representative democracy is bullshit because anyone power hungry can acess power via rigged elections.
