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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Some AI Koans</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="appendixa.html" title="Appendix A. Hacker Folklore"/><link rel="previous" href="magic-story.html" title="A Story About ‘Magic'"/><link rel="next" href="os-and-jedgar.html" title="OS and JEDGAR"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Some AI Koans</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="magic-story.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Appendix A. Hacker Folklore</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="os-and-jedgar.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="koans"/>Some AI Koans</h2></div></div><div/></div><div class="toc"><dl><dt><a href="koans.html#id3141171">Tom Knight and the Lisp Machine</a></dt><dt><a href="koans.html#id3141202">Moon instructs a student</a></dt><dt><a href="koans.html#id3141241">Sussman attains enlightenment</a></dt><dt><a href="koans.html#id3141308">Drescher and the toaster</a></dt></dl></div><p>These are some of the funniest examples of a genre of jokes told at the
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MIT AI Lab about various noted hackers. The original koans were composed by
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Danny Hillis, who would later found Connection Machines, Inc. In reading
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these, it is at least useful to know that Minsky, Sussman, and Drescher are AI
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researchers of note, that Tom Knight was one of the Lisp machine's principal
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designers, and that David Moon wrote much of Lisp Machine Lisp.</p><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id3141171"/>Tom Knight and the Lisp Machine</h3></div></div><div/></div><p>A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power
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off and on.</p><p>Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: “<span class="quote">You
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cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is
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going wrong.</span>”</p><p>Knight turned the machine off and on.</p><p>The machine worked.</p></div><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id3141202"/>Moon instructs a student</h3></div></div><div/></div><p>One day a student came to Moon and said: “<span class="quote">I understand how to make
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a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers to
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each cons.</span>”</p><p>Moon patiently told the student the following story:</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><p>“One day a student came to Moon and said: ‘I understand how
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to make a better garbage collector...</p></blockquote></div><p>[Ed. note: Pure reference-count garbage collectors have problems with
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circular structures that point to themselves.]</p></div><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id3141241"/>Sussman attains enlightenment</h3></div></div><div/></div><p>In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat
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hacking at the PDP-6.</p><p>“<span class="quote">What are you doing?</span>”, asked Minsky.</p><p>“<span class="quote">I am training a randomly wired neural net to play
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Tic-Tac-Toe</span>” Sussman replied.</p><p>“<span class="quote">Why is the net wired randomly?</span>”, asked Minsky.</p><p>“<span class="quote">I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to
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play</span>”, Sussman said.</p><p>Minsky then shut his eyes.</p><p>“<span class="quote">Why do you close your eyes?</span>”, Sussman asked his
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teacher.</p><p>“<span class="quote">So that the room will be empty.</span>”</p><p>At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.</p></div><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id3141308"/>Drescher and the toaster</h3></div></div><div/></div><p>A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his
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morning meal.</p><p>“<span class="quote">I would like to give you this personality test</span>”, said the
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outsider, “<span class="quote">because I want you to be happy.</span>”</p><p>Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the
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toaster, saying: “<span class="quote">I wish the toaster to be happy, too.</span>”</p></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="magic-story.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="appendixa.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="os-and-jedgar.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">A Story About ‘Magic' </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> OS and JEDGAR</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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