Hacker koan
Encyclopedia
Out of hacker culture
, and especially the artificial intelligence
community at MIT, there have sprung a number of humor
ous short stories about computer science
dubbed hacker koans; most of these are recorded in an appendix to the Jargon File
, where they are called AI
Koans. Most do not fit the usual pattern of koans, but they do tend to follow the form of being short, enigmatic, and often revealing an epiphany
.
Similar to traditional Zen koans, this koan has a possible concrete and correct answer: just as the room is not really empty when Minsky shuts his eyes, neither is the neural network really free of preconceptions when it is randomly wired. The network still has preconceptions, they are simply random now, and from a random
rather than a human
source.
This particular koan seems to have been closely based on a real incident; the following text extract is from Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
(chapter 6):
A very similar story exists in the The Tao of Programming
.
at MIT:
ningly referred to as an “ice cream koan”, though that term also refers to an ice cream koan in The Dharma Bums. This koan refers to AI Lab tools that predate the GNU
project:
A possible interpretation is that this is about the arbitrariness of identifier
s in computer code – the name of variables does not affect the function of the code.
compiled the original AI Koans into a collection as part of his work on the Hacker's Jargon Dictionary. Inspired by them, he has written several pastiches, in toto entitled the "Rootless Root"http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/ (a reference to the koan collection The Gateless Gate
). Raymond notes that Danny Hillis invented the AI koan while a student at MIT.
Hacker culture
A hacker is a member of the computer programmer subculture originated in the 1960s in the United States academia, in particular around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 's Tech Model Railroad Club and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory...
, and especially the artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
community at MIT, there have sprung a number of humor
Geek humor
Geek humor or geek humour, also known as nerd humor, is a form of comedy that relies on references to geek culture.-Definition:By the strictest definition, geek humor is a branch of humor that encompasses the interest ranges of individuals who are either known as geeks or consciously identify as...
ous short stories about computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
dubbed hacker koans; most of these are recorded in an appendix to the Jargon File
Jargon File
The Jargon File is a glossary of computer programmer slang. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities, including Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Carnegie Mellon...
, where they are called AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
Koans. Most do not fit the usual pattern of koans, but they do tend to follow the form of being short, enigmatic, and often revealing an epiphany
Epiphany (feeling)
An epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something...
.
Uncarved block
- In the days when SussmanGerald Jay SussmanGerald Jay Sussman is the Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He received his S.B. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from MIT in 1968 and 1973 respectively. He has been involved in artificial intelligence research at MIT since 1964...
was a novice, MinskyMarvin MinskyMarvin Lee Minsky is an American cognitive scientist in the field of artificial intelligence , co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy.-Biography:...
once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6PDP-6The PDP-6 was a computer model developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1963. It was influential primarily as the prototype for the later PDP-10; the instruction sets of the two machines are almost identical.The PDP-6 was DEC's first "big" machine...
.
- "What are you doing?", asked Minsky.
- "I am training a randomly wired neural netNeural networkThe term neural network was traditionally used to refer to a network or circuit of biological neurons. The modern usage of the term often refers to artificial neural networks, which are composed of artificial neurons or nodes...
to play Tic-tac-toeTic-tac-toeTic-tac-toe, also called wick wack woe and noughts and crosses , is a pencil-and-paper game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. The X player usually goes first...
", Sussman replied. - "Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky.
- "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said.
- Minsky then shut his eyes.
- "Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher.
- "So that the room will be empty."
- At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
Similar to traditional Zen koans, this koan has a possible concrete and correct answer: just as the room is not really empty when Minsky shuts his eyes, neither is the neural network really free of preconceptions when it is randomly wired. The network still has preconceptions, they are simply random now, and from a random
Randomness
Randomness has somewhat differing meanings as used in various fields. It also has common meanings which are connected to the notion of predictability of events....
rather than a human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
source.
This particular koan seems to have been closely based on a real incident; the following text extract is from Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution is a book by Steven Levy about hacker culture. It was published in 1984 in Garden City, New York by Anchor Press/Doubleday...
(chapter 6):
Victory
- A student was playing a handheld video game during a class.
- The teacher called on the student and asked him what he was doing.
- The student replied that he was trying to master the game.
- The teacher said, "There exists a state in which you will not attempt to master the game, and the game will not attempt to master you."
- The student asked, "What is this state?"
- The teacher said, "Give me your video game, and I will show you."
- The student gave him the game, and the teacher threw it to the ground, breaking it into pieces. The student was enlightened.
A very similar story exists in the The Tao of Programming
The Tao of Programming
The Tao of Programming is a book written in 1987 by Geoffrey James. Written in a tongue-in-cheek style spoof of classic Taoist texts such as the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi which belies its serious message...
.
Enlightenment
This koan is attributed to Tom Knight, one of the primary developers of the Lisp machineLisp machine
Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. In a sense, they were the first commercial single-user workstations...
at MIT:
- A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.
- Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong."
- Knight turned the machine off and on.
- The machine worked.
Master Foo
- It is recorded that once, when Master Foo was iteratingIterationIteration means the act of repeating a process usually with the aim of approaching a desired goal or target or result. Each repetition of the process is also called an "iteration," and the results of one iteration are used as the starting point for the next iteration.-Mathematics:Iteration in...
along a beach, he came upon two of his disciples arguing by a computer processor. - "It is subtracting positive 1", declared the first.
- "No; it is adding negative 1", asserted the other.
- Master Foo answered them thus: "Not incrementing, not decrementing — Equalizing!" whereupon both were enlightened.
- (Derived from "Huineng's flag", Case 29, The Gateless GateThe Gateless GateThe Gateless Gate is a collection of 48 Chan koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai . Wumen's preface indicates that the volume was published in 1228. Each koan is accompanied by a commentary and verse by Wumen...
.)
- (Derived from "Huineng's flag", Case 29, The Gateless Gate
Emacs and Bolio
This particular koan is sometimes punPun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
ningly referred to as an “ice cream koan”, though that term also refers to an ice cream koan in The Dharma Bums. This koan refers to AI Lab tools that predate the GNU
GNU
GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
project:
- A cocky novice once said to StallmanRichard StallmanRichard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
: “I can guess why the editor is called EmacsEmacsEmacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...
, but why is the justifierMarkup languageA markup language is a modern system for annotating a text in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from that text. The idea and terminology evolved from the "marking up" of manuscripts, i.e. the revision instructions by editors, traditionally written with a blue pencil on authors' manuscripts...
called Bolio?”. Stallman replied forcefully, “Names are but names, ‘Emack & Bolio'sEmack & Bolio'sEmack & Bolio's is a chain of ice cream stores based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The chain was founded by Robert Rook, a lawyer and self-declared hippie who has worked closely with the homeless, Vietnam war protesters, civil and gay rights advocates, and numerous rock bands such as...
’ is the name of a popular ice cream shop in BostonBostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
-town. Neither of these men had anything to do with the software.”
- His question answered, yet unanswered, the novice turned to go, but Stallman called to him, “Neither Emack nor Bolio had anything to do with the ice cream shop, either.”
A possible interpretation is that this is about the arbitrariness of identifier
Identifier
An identifier is a name that identifies either a unique object or a unique class of objects, where the "object" or class may be an idea, physical [countable] object , or physical [noncountable] substance...
s in computer code – the name of variables does not affect the function of the code.
Collections
Eric S. RaymondEric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...
compiled the original AI Koans into a collection as part of his work on the Hacker's Jargon Dictionary. Inspired by them, he has written several pastiches, in toto entitled the "Rootless Root"http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/ (a reference to the koan collection The Gateless Gate
The Gateless Gate
The Gateless Gate is a collection of 48 Chan koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai . Wumen's preface indicates that the volume was published in 1228. Each koan is accompanied by a commentary and verse by Wumen...
). Raymond notes that Danny Hillis invented the AI koan while a student at MIT.
External links
- Jargon File Koans -(Eric S. RaymondEric S. RaymondEric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...
's compilation)