His Emeritus Professor MIT, Marvin Minsky, who led the research on the principles of robotics and artificial intelligence, won the prize BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge in the category of information and communication technology.
The award, from the philanthropic arm of Spanish banking giant BBVA, honored 86-year-old Minsky's contributions to science. During the duration During his long career, he was a lecturer and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and helped launch the MIT Media Lab.
The prize was accompanied by a cash prize of 540.000 dollars.
Minsky wrote some of the first and most influential studies on artificial intelligence and robotics that helped birth the field. He even advised director Stanley Kubrick on the creation of “2001:A Space Odyssey"
Today, Minsky continues to teach at his 86, a course in Artificial Intelligence at MIT. He learned about his honor on Monday night, when his institution called his home in Brookline.
"I don't know what they think I did," Minsky said. "I've theorized about how the mind works and if I'm lucky enough, some schoolchildren they might make a career out of it.”
Many of them have already done so. His former students were Ray Kurzweil, the writer and futurist named 2012's Engineering Director at Google, and many others who have made a successful career in academia and industry.
Marvin Minsky was also instrumental in the MIT Media Lab, a department well known for being way ahead of today's trends. technology. "Marvin has a humility that comes from being right, he knows it, and he doesn't have to prove anything to anybody," Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the lab, told the Boston Globe. "He's always patient with me, even when I've said and done some really stupid things."
Marvin Minsky said he has not decided what to do with the cash prize. He plans to travel to Spain at the end of the year to receive the prize, along with the winners in seven other categories.
The BBVA Awards launched 2008 and honor achievements in the arts, science and technology.
