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I audited a class on policy at the Harvard Kennedy School in October of 2015, and instead of going to class one day, we listened to a speaker (Jaron Lanier). After the talk, I stuck around in the front row and eavesdropped on people asking him questions. Eventually, one person came up to his side and asked "are you going to Marvin's house tonight?" I thought this person may have been talking about Minsky! So after Jaron responded with a "maybe" I approached this man and asked him if he was. And he did mean Minsky!!

This man and I started talking about intelligence, ML vs. symbolic, and more... he truly knew many intricacies of AI! Eventually, for some amazing reason, out of nowhere he asked me if I wanted to come to Marvin's house that evening! Of course I said yes! At the time, the only paper I had on me was ironically Patrick Winston's thesis printed out in my backpack, so this man wrote the name "Henry Lieberman" (a colleague of Minsky's) on the cover and gave me Minsky's address!

I went to Marvin's house that evening, and it was simply wonderful! We talked about SoM, and I was included in these discussions and was treated like a colleague. Marvin answered all my initial questions, but only created more within me! He engaged me! I really felt included. It was one of luckiest days in my life.

I'm sharing because I'm reading other stories about people's encounters with Marvin, and while I was reading them I didn't feel as sad. Perhaps mine might do the same for someone somewhere.