Marvin Minsky: Health, population and the human mind

[AntoMelta]

Good, I like that you share this video Listen closely -- Marvin Minsky's arch, eclectic, charmingly offhand talk on health, overpopulation and the human mind is packed with subtlety, I wish success always

[willamricard]

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[imegatrone]

I Really Like The Video Listen closely -- Marvin Minsky's arch, eclectic, charmingly offhand talk on health, overpopulation and the human mind is packed with subtlety From Your

[bundawartini]

Your Video Is Very Useful Sharing Listen closely -- Marvin Minsky's arch, eclectic, charmingly offhand talk on health, overpopulation and the human mind is packed with subtlety

[S2Cents]

Dreyfus pissed this guy off. Minksky tried to have him fired. Years went by and Dreyfus was proved right.

[CalumnMcAulay]

500 millions people? he's obviously joking!

[warwize]

pretty horrible lecture lol, 

[efraimdeluxe]

500 million ... georgia guide stones! 

[SuperRoyalJelly]

numbers dont matter LOL

[polymath7]

Slight correction of Minsky: 'The City and the Stars' was rewritten as 'Beyond the Fall of Night' not by Clarke himself but by Gregory Benford (incidentally another of Minsky''s favorite authors) with Clarke's enthusiastic blessing.

[CorreyKowall]

Even though skilled practitioners like Grossberg were not fooled for a moment by Minsky and Papert's erroneous conjecture that the use of layers would not allow XOR to be solved, the real travesty was the misrepresentation to the novices that were not yet in the business of reading peer reviewed scientific journals.

[CorreyKowall]

In science absolute realism is necessary but seldom sufficient. It is however a matter of historical fact that researchers had encountered and addressed the shortcomings of the single layer perceptron prior to the initial publication of Perceptrons and had widely published the results within a year of it's initial publication. It is a distinct discredit to Minsky and Perceptrons that he waited more than a decade (1987) to amend the book and then he only did so in the foreword.

[CorreyKowall]

People blindly idolizing this fool is the one of the reasons behind the AI winter of the 1970's. His criticism of artficial neural networks and genetic algorithms are accepted as gospel by idolotars. Just like the end of this talk, he sometimes criticises without complete substantiation which historically has had far more of an effect than his positive contributions. Scepticism is the luxury of those without real problems.

[blaizerhodes]

He made a reasonable criticism of these systems (perceptrons can't learn xor). Which forced a reevaluation of the neural networks (to get multi-layer perceptrons). That's what science is. His approach was perfectly ligit and reasonable.

[andyx1205]

He might be a horrible speaker, but he's one of the most intelligent people in the world right now.

Isaac Asimov: The only 2 people I've ever met that I admit are more intelligen than me are Carl Sagan and Marvin Minsky

[soggylogg]

speaker was pretty ballsy to talk about world population and garbage in one topic.

[FeelOfFriction]

Lol this guy is awesome. Public education is rubbish.

[GAMEOFTAG]

boneless 1:44 the horrible invisible disease

[EveryHumanBeing]

A.I. Driven Meta reasoning. If I could sum it up in a few words.

[DavidMTRutten]

Ouch... this is painful to watch. I think I'l stick to reading his work rather than having him explain it to me live.

[paganiniGOGO]

Why cause its too extemporaneous?

[DavidMTRutten]

Because his intonation makes it hard to follow when he's talking or "quoting". Because his jokes aren't funny. Because his sentences are poorly constructed and tied together with "anyway"s and "whatever"s and "euh"s. Because all his solutions are non-sensical and his ideas not his own.

[paganiniGOGO]

I guess its particularly annoying because he obviously has more interesting and original ideas.

[larstait]

eccentricity; often an overlookable hallmark of highly, (highly) intelligent people

[santiontanon]

No doubt Minsky is a genius, but as everyone who knows him would tell you, "he cannot talk himself out of a bag" :)

[danielrep]

Christian and Catholic churches are the main responsibles of this overpopulation disaster: By opposing to birth control, abortion, and so on.

Global warming, the forests, dirting the waters, everything relates with overpopulation, not industrial greed or fascisem or any of that stupidity. Im not saying there is not industrial abuse, Im saying overpopulation is maybe the most overlooked of problems, and no one seems to point responsibles, fucking popes with their psychotic dogma.

[thoth27]

Religious doctrine may have contributed to the expanding population, but no more than farting contributes to global warming. The population explosion happened as the power and sway of the church diminished in the latter part of the industrial revolution with advances in science, medicine and social reform, resulting in better standards of living for people. Disease and War, to an extent, were a malady now curable, to an extent, that would have otherwise killed those afflicted populaces.

[danielrep]

No: they lost the political power, but the influence they do over people is even now quite apparent.

When the moment of child desease arrived, mid XIX century, there was an urgency for birth control. Nothing happened. Wojltya and Ratzinger have made all the efforts to forbid the condom in Africa. They oppose in a grotesque way against abortion. They are the main responsibles in the western society. The poorest and most religious ones tends to have more children. Do yo need more proof?

[thoth27]

all in all though, there are many contributory factors to over population, to pin point one would be inaccurate and/or superficial.

[fluoridemakesudumb]

complete fucking waste of time. eccentric fool ranting on non constructive things.

wtf tedtalks?

[fluoridemakesudumb]

the NWO would love this nutjob.

[dragonstorm83]

there is a point where you might as well shave it all off. he crossed it a decade ago O_O

[robotaholic]

he is my fucking hero

[schzx]

As a means of supporting a large population, he didn't even mention mind uploading (probably too a too out-there idea for TED, though, but not for reasons of implausibility)

[jaicket]

Well, we don't know whether or not it's plausible because we don't yet understand the human mind well enough, so it's probably best in the time being to stick to currently scientifically plausicle solutions rather than philosphically plausible ones

[kristin7858]

he is a horrible public speaker

[popitypop]

agreed.. his jokes are so lame, he has to move on to hide the fact that he just told a joke so as not to lose face..

[polymath7]

Minsky isn't really trying to make any jokes in this talk; he's just an exceedingly eccentric personality.

He is also, as it happens, the author of the single best explanatory essay on humor I have ever read.

[thejudicialbranch9]

+ Syndromes: Draconian - Organizational_studies_and_hum­an_resource_management, Unintended_consequences, Transhumanism, Human capital, Human Development Theory, Welfare Economics, Common_aspects_of_mediation

[1schwererziehbar1]

this video is a good excuse for some to talk about genocide without other people recognizing the evil. enjoy your asshole forum, assholes!

[Nowekian]

i haven't heard him say anything abuout genocide, dick. The dangers of overpopulation are very real... and he's simply detailing a few of his own ideas, cockhole. Forums are intended to scrutinize and criticize ideas. A place for those to find the evils that have been masked, and find more viable solutions, poon face. Its a mode of education, not a place to insult people, whore. So don't call me an asshole, you vomitous pile of pig shit.

[sunrisewalker]

Even if he was talking about genocide, our population will probably do that using just the carrying capacity of the planet

[ZodyZody]

We seem to forget (or neglect)the fact that we are part of an planetary ecological system; in this system, populations that go up, always come down, with the decline usually just as precipitous as the incline. We may 'think' that the use of our 'brain' will change the final outcome, but our presence on this globe is just a small blip taken into consideration of the big picture. What goes up must come down.

[ExecutiveSuite]

If you haven't noticed, humans don't generally follow the ecological route as other animal populations...

[ZodyZody]

If you haven't noticed, human 'time' is not on the same plane as ecological time. What goes up, must come down; it's a basic building block of nature.

[lordmetroid]

Okay, sure we cap the population, you go first... SUCKER!!!

[threelegduck]

life leads to suffering in one way or another

attachment to worldly objects and craving of worldly pleasures are the cause of suffering

suffering ends when craving ends

[watzupdawg]

I blame Viagra spam.

[falujah]

unite the world into one big "country" and start looking for other planets

[castedkilla]

Morons

[darkstone243]

I would think that the hardest part would be making eating the dead Muslims a socially acceptable nutritional resource to the African tribes would be the largest hurdle. But once that occurs once we have exhausted that food supply we will realize that inevitably they will turn on each other have a genocide or another 3 week riot. And that generation will eat all the dead, so the only way they will learn to eat is to kill. Eventually eating each other until only one fat African is left to shoot.

[mikeyo1234]

This was obviously a talk targeted at chimps... it certainly came across as fairly below par on the intelligence stakes. In fact Minsky acts and looks like a shaven chimp himself.

[srudlak]

man and fish can coexist peacefully!

kill the ted-nazis, not 80% of mankind and all will be fine.

[mikeyo1234]

Not impressed with this talk, he is talking utter junk. Complete fool.

[j40505]

lol

welcome to the world of ted speakers!

90% is just gas emiited from their backside.

[mikeyo1234]

lol it certainly looks that way j40505. Some are very good though.

[bignewgame]

AI can be achieved with a binary output using the random input from freed electrons. See EPR experiment. Roger Vogelsang designed a "self thinking interface" back in 1970 that did just that. After trying to explain how it worked he was interrupted by the DOD on his Ham radio telling him to cease and desist his information was classified top secret.

So did the US DOD already know of this technology? See "self thinking interface" by Dr. Vogelsang, KTS Research.

[runnergunner3]

Creepy. He uses the population numbers found on the Georgia guidestones. Many madmen come across as gentile and charming men. He's speaking of the New World Order and guising it as science. It's quite apparent to me that their goal would be to create artificial intelligence with a machine workforce to maintain crops and process all essentials. He's implying that no blue collar work force would be necessary. This is pure eugenics in that within a 'natural' population not all can be great minds.

[ernamecanonly]

@runnergunner3 not to worry; there are no great minds, they're all shit

[gnawershreth]

Not my favorite TED talk but the man's got a point. Our biggest problem is over population but we don't like talking about that. It's not politically correct.

As long as being "PC" is more important to people than actually solving problems and talking about the real issues, we will never solve anything. It will be the end of humanity as we know it.

We're trying to fight hunger but it's not natural for several millions to live in a desert. lol That's why they're starving to begin with. :p

[d30few]

haha really. I remember in highschool our history teacher was teaching us about the new deal and how that had potential to fix the depression. Then he threw in the idea that fdr didn't fix the high unemployment rate of america as well as hitler did of most of europe. although I dont believe it is right to just pick a group of people and commit genocide, maybe clearing a substantial number of people like a wildfire does to a forest is healthy for the population, as the fire is to the forest's bed

[gnawershreth]

I don't like genocide either. Hehe I don't think anyone really does. :)

When I see the starving children on tv, I feel bad like most other people but I can't help wondering.. What is the point? They live in a desert. They will starve again as soon as the aid runs out.

We're supporting people in places where life really isn't supposed to be. We're supporting even greater overpopulation.

We do it cause we want to help, but aren't we doing more harm really? :/

[c6gunner]

The problem isn't that life isn't possible in a desert. The problem is that they cannot produce enough to sustain their own populations - let alone improve their standard of living - but insist on increasing their numbers anyway.

The upside of that is that as standards of living improve and longevity goes up, the birthrate naturally experiences a downturn. If we can help them develop their nations to a point where they can compete with us, their birth rates will fall to manageable levels.

[gnawershreth]

I agree with you, c6gunner. I just have a hard time seeing how they will ever get to that point. The population is way too high in a lot of places. They don't have enough good farm land etc. to ever support their own population.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't support them but we need to do it in a smarter way. Right now we're just helping them make their own situation worse and making it harder for the country to ever "evolve". :/

[c6gunner]

Africa isn't all wasteland. Anyway, with proper irrigation methods and bioengineered crops, you'd be surprised how much even arid regions can produce.

You're right though, we need to be smart about how we help them. That's why I'm a big fan of micro-lending. We need to find African entrepreneurs who have good ideas, and give THEM the funds to start workable businesses which can employ and feed the local populace. Shoving "aid" at peasants does nothing except make them dependent on us.

[gnawershreth]

Hehe I know it's not all wasteland. :)

There's a lot of it though and with the current climatic changes, there will be more in the future.

I agree with you on the micro-lending thing. We need to help the local population get better at supporting themselves.. Otherwise we can keep sending food down there forever without solving anything.

As long as we keep doing what we're doing now, the problems will just keep getting worse. :/

[747dog]

....Slip birth control into grains ...

[jrvillela]

You got a point: while being politically correct is more important than solving problems there won't be any solution.

So, for the sake of the argument and avoding being politically correct: Overconsumption is as bad as overpopulation. If the whole world would begin to consume as the american pigs, the world would not even last 50 years more.

[jrvillela]

"We're trying to fight hunger but it's not natural for several millions to live in a desert."

Yah, that's true: think about all those pigs living in Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and so on!

[crdrews]

I didn't like this speech. There are some much simpler ways to approach those problems that are more effective and less problematic.

[InfectedDaemon]

OK, I accept that I am crazy because I think genocide is a bad idea (not saying you approve of it, just saying that I disapprove it). Also, with current simulations (seen it on TEDtalks) the population may reach 13 billion tops, and the would could sustain that, after which, population would decline via reproductive control (like China) and education (like Europe). I don't like the idea if living so crowded. But genocide is the other option, either killing or castrating. Still the same thing.

[Borror0]

Vasectomy is a more human option than castration don't you think? ;)

[InfectedDaemon]

Even chemical (not estrogens... thats inhumane, though I forgot the pharmaceutical that can do it). Still amounts to the same thing, you don't let a part of the population reproduce = genocide. Will you decide on social strata or education for reproducing? The whole point is that its not right to do that from the start. Can you buy your way into having more children? In massive quantities it still amounts to genocide even if your polite about it. Best thing is one child per family like in China.

[hdbass]

i am an apeman

=)

proud to be too

in the next few years we will see more talk about overpopulation

if you look in nature when a species gets too numerous what happens? yeah...thats gonna happen to us too.

[freesk8]

The incentives can be provided by the market if people are required to financially support the kids they have instead of relying on government handouts that effectively subsidize reproduction.

But I don't want the government shoving a "moral message" down my throat. That's why the separation of church and state is such a good idea.

But spreading low-fertility memes through private, peaceful means is just fine with me.

I'm not convinced the sky is falling.

Malthus was wrong, too.

[R055HP]

Suggesting removing government support is awful. The best way is to give financial benefits to those who reproduce the correct amount of times. The resources freed by lower population would more than cover the cost of this. The event of governments forcing down population is inevitable. Allowing the rich to have as many children as they wish does not help.

[freesk8]

What you advocate is the use of force against peaceful people. The only way to enforce your policy is to enact laws, and these laws have to be enforced at the point of a gun, even if they are fines. And the rich will just pay these fines anyway.

And what elite gets to determine the "correct" number of children?

This is the road to dictatorship.

Do you endorse China's "one child" policy? Do you know the abandonment and infanticide this policy caused?

Every mouth comes with two hands.

[sysFail81]

China's doing the right thing. Despite the humanity tragedy that its causing, it is more desirable than the doomsday scenario of an overpopulated world.

[freesk8]

End justifies the means, eh?

I just don't think the sky is falling. I think population is levelling off, and I think the spread of free market policies in places like India is the real cause. Educated women tend to reproduce less, and education is only affordable if the country is more wealthy. More wealth comes from more entrepreneurship, and this is only possible if the local government gets out of the way, and acts to defend property rights for entrepreneurs.

Dictatorship is a bad idea.

[freesk8]

That's not true. Bad regulation that shielded corporate lenders from the risks of making risky loans to people who were bad credit risks is one cause. The government creating too much money supply, leading to inflation is another. Inflation is a stealth tax on the poor. Then there is the fed creating low interest rates, which inflated the stock market by encouraging too much debt. Government over-spending and taxing too. Mostly, the recession is caused by the government and bad regulation.

[thoth81]

Excellent point about inflation. People forget that inflation significantly affects those of the debtor class, while members of a creditor class experience negligible decreases in their wealth or purchasing power (because they have more money to soften the blow of their money being worth less).

[thoth27]

hello thoth81

I am thoth27

[lordmetroid]

Pft, world is far from over-populated.

[sighuponsigh]

The world is far from overpopulated? :/

[madashelldude]

colonize the solar system. we need to get rid of this reactionary oil cartel and many things will be possible that people don't even talk about right now. the idea that you can disappear humanity with the exception of 100 mil ppl is scary. I mean the fact that intelligent people suggest it, that's what's scary. People should listen to Nobel laureate Dr. Richard Smalley instead, Minsky has no clue about this. look up his google video: 3912283210008435127

[popitypop]

yea... hes right.. parts of the world is over populated, parts of the world is underpopulated.. it aint spread out through out the entire world.. th reason y we re so freaked out is b coz of the rate of growth, we re scared tht we d b overpopulated in the near future..

[freesk8]

And how are you going to achieve that result?

Making breeding illegal?

You'll need a dictatorship like the one in China for that.

Would you use force? That is how laws are enforced. What would Gandhi have thought of that?

The problem is that most means of achieving Minsky's end involve violating human rights.

I'd rather have overpopulation with human dignity than some idealized notion of human population under a dictatorship of the elite.

[R055HP]

Overpopulaton and dignity do not go together. You feel safe, in your wealthy lifestyle so you don't mind the millions who starve and will starve. I think it is better to cap population now rather than have it peak in the future due to world-wide sarvation and poverty. And it does not take a dictatorship to see the blatantly obvious.

[freesk8]

It does not take a dictatorship to see the obvious, but they tend not to, compared to societies with free speech and open debate.

But it DOES take a dictatorship to "cap population" as you advocate.

Relax, the sky is not falling. The poor are getting more access to food, shelter, water and jobs and the "liberalization" of international and local markets is the cause. We need more of both, both for the sake of the poor and for the health of the planet.

[R055HP]

The poor are NOT getting more food. In many parts of the world poverty is worsening. The world's ecological crises have been caused by overpopulation coupled with over-development. "Liberalisation" does not make the poor richer. The trickle-down-thoery of economics is wrong. Making the rich richer does not help the poor.

[freesk8]

I'm taking a long-term view. There has been no famine in Europe since the early 1900's because of industrialization, which was caused by free market liberalization and the freedom to innovate and keep the profits. The rich employ the poor. The rich create jobs, but the poor tend not to, except for poor entrepreneurs, who create their own jobs. Trickle-down DOES work. Taxing the rich too much destroys jobs, hurts the poor, and reduces the incentive for the poor to become entrepreneurs.

[nvcn86]

OMG

i come up with the 100M people idea myself some time ago. easiest way to solve most of world problems.

[Arghira]

What was that ultimate sceen?

[Arghira]

with hand shape

[1schwererziehbar1]

welcome to the eugenics forum! post your misanthropic elitist comments right here!

[Mrmoc7]

I gave a thumbs up because I assumed you were being sarcastic or just funny. I hope I am right.

[archaedemos]

statements that are absolute are always wrong.(;

[Mrmoc7]

"statements that are absolute are always wrong."

Oh, you mean like the one you just typed?

[commandingheights]

Worst TED talk ever.

[Mrmoc7]

I have tried to watch this talk from the beginning to the end on two separate occasions, and each time, I was bored to sleep. I'll try again today.

[jasonlajoie]

I seriously doubt that people would be any smarter if they lived 200 - 1000 years. They would have time to learn more of what knowledge already exists; languages, literature, etc. However, the expansion of new knowledge and discoveries would have nothing to do with people who lived longer.

[thoth81]

I have to disagree with you. When individuals are capable of possessing more knowledge (in a perfect state of memory), it seems likely that the rate of discoveries would increase exponentially as due to their personal knowledge bases more correlations could be made between various disciplines and fields of knowledge. It would be like experts of different fields that get together now to brainstorm on issues, except inside your head. Faster, yes?

[jasonlajoie]

Your statement in parenthesise is the key to your point. I see your point, but I don't remember most of what I studied in school 15 years ago. Try imagining remembering what you learned 200 years ago.

[thoth81]

You and I are most likely members of one of the last generations to not have augmented memorization storage. We can sit our great-grandchildren on our knee and regale them with tales of when "people were un-modified and had to work at memorizing things" haha...with molecular nanotechnology many things are possible - even perfect memory storage, similar to how data is stored on a medium inside your computer.

[homerthompsonman]

Genetic algorithms are worst at "right and wrong" issues. There is no "hill" to climb, so there is no advantage. A random number generator is just as likely to get a good answer and far faster.

[freesk8]

Smart guy, but his talk was almost completely useless. It would have had some redeeming value if it had been funny, but it wasn't.

What's he going to do to get to 500 million people? Kill off 8 Billion?

[FlailingJunk]

If he wants a lower population he can start with himself.

[nine9s]

That list of "benefits" of having a smaller population is totally bunk. If there are fewer people, that means fewer people to extract and transport the energy we need. As for having less pollution... What's the point, if 5.5 billion people have to no longer exist to make it happen? 

Basically, he's saying "get rid of humanity's problems by getting rid of 92% of humanity." As if we'd all be better off having never been born than to have to live with the risk of getting sick from a handshake.

[NastyDHL]

Hmmm, I don't think you got the essential message of his speech. I didn't even watch it yet and I can tell that you misconstrue his points. First, fewer people means less energy to be used, if there is less people we don't need as to extract and transport as much energy. You are saying there is no point to less pollution because there will be 5.5 billion people less on earth? I'm sure the 500 mil will appreciate less pollution, as well as the rest of earth's creatures and organisms.

[nine9s]

"I didn't even watch it yet and I can tell that you misconstrue his points."

LOL! I understand all too well. He thinks it's better not to exist than to have colds and pollution. And he thinks that nature has intrinsic value, that it's valuable "for its own sake," regardless of whether anyone values it or not.

[NastyDHL]

You don't think nature has intrinsic value regardless of whether anyone values it or not?

[nine9s]

"First, fewer people means less energy to be used...we don't need as to extract and transport as much energy."

No kidding. So in all likelihood, it's a wash as far as energy is concerned.

"You are saying there is no point to less pollution because there will be 5.5 billion people less on earth? I'm sure the 500 mil will appreciate less pollution"

I'm sure 5.5 billion people would more greatly appreciate having been born.

[NastyDHL]

I'm sure the 5.5 wouldn't mind too much considering they wouldn't be given the opportunity to appreciate being born or not.

I think the main difference between our perspectives is that I value nature and other life far more than you, while you value human life far more than me. Do you believe that because humans are the most dominant species that they have the right to pollute, destroy and change other species habitats to any extent they wish?

[NastyDHL]

Also, if his message was that we'd be better off having never been born than to have to live with the risk of getting sick from a handshake, I doubt TED would post his presentation on here. I'm assuming he means that the future populations will live much more efficiently if there was a 92% drop in population, not that the 92% would be better off never born.

[nine9s]

"I'm assuming he means that the future populations will live much more efficiently if there was a 92% drop in population, not that the 92% would be better off never born."

I'm sure that's exactly what he meant. And my point stands regardless. It's better to be born than not to be.

[InfectedDaemon]

nine9s... I think he meant what he said... That only a 10th or less of the world population should exist. I'm pretty sure he is a little crazy. Or very crazy... a case of too much scifi novels...

[NastyDHL]

I think it's better to be born than not to be born, but for the sake of the earth and it's non-human inhabitants I'd say it's better not to be born.

[igorkrupitsky]

That was in 2003... Does anyone know if any research was done on classifying the types of problems and the ways to solve the types of problems?

[Jianju69]

Mr. Minsky has been working on these ideas for many decades. Please read his book, Society of Mind for more detail. Yes, people all over the world are working on developing these ideas & their own related ideas as well.

[tenaciousblck]

its relieving to see a great mind such as his, not be boggled by a rigid personality. Its wonderful that a open-minded such as his is leading arguably one THE Most important fields of the 21st, 22nd and 23rd centuries

[nilbud]

Frinktastic

[HymerSchmidt]

Marvin Minsky is one of my favorite people.

[tyrbolo]

Starting to get close after a long bumpy road to true AI. He looks good which is nice to see.

[blackberryjuice1]

ew, and then he ate the germs he shook, LOL.

[greycloud24]

ha chimpanzees are smart enough not to have organized religion. maybe we should teach em sign language and ask them for help on solving the mess we have got ourselves into.

[MassZombicide]

I agree, chimps are smarter than theists

[Lazerjo2000]

wonderful