Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks
Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks By James A. Anderson, Edward Rosenfeld
Publisher: The MIT Press 1998 | 448 Pages | ISBN: 0262011670 | PDF | 3 MB
Publisher: The MIT Press 1998 | 448 Pages | ISBN: 0262011670 | PDF | 3 MB
This work is not so much a collection of interviews seeking to enlighten some distinctive readership on the scientific workings of neural networks as it is a congeries of page after tedious page of the ramblings of 17 scientists who work in the vanguard of the neural field. In addition to neural networks, the work includes neurocomputing, fuzzy logic, and artificial intelligence. Anderson (linguistics, Brown) and journalist Rosenfield allow their subjects to range freely, and they discuss themselves, the neural network field (much of their offering here is anecdotal and even gossipy), and whatever happens to pop into their heads. Jerome Lettvin, professor emeritus at MIT, roams for ten pages on the question "What did your parents do?" Fuzzy logician Bart Kosko waxes nostalgic about how brilliant he was as a youth, thoughtfully into drugs and music until "a very bad acid trip, a paranoid trip, [after which] I got completely out of it and was turned off by the whole culture, including rock music." At least the glossary is good.