What is Digg?128 Comments
- inactive, on 01/19/2008, -5/+95Incredibly engaging story.
- catalysis, on 01/19/2008, -2/+89Sadly, it was the only way to stop skynet.
- nrvous250gt, on 01/19/2008, -2/+69Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322 Oakview, CA 93022. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.
- davorau, on 01/19/2008, -2/+49This is a great story, couldn't stop searching and clinking to find out more. What a sad loss.
- _skin_, on 01/19/2008, -4/+50Holy crap was that long. Good, but long.
- paulvq, on 01/19/2008, -10/+39That is what she said.
I'm sorry; I couldn't resist. - BigJigger, on 01/19/2008, -1/+30I used to frequent Joel Spolsky's (of Joel On Software) Off Topic forum. I remember when Chris McKinstry showed up and started jabbering about a bunch of his wierd ideas. He fronted a huge superiority complex, and came across pretty crazy. We all teased him, but he loved the attention and became a semi-regular. Then one day he announced he was offing himself. It got pretty intense, but some of the regulars went out of their way to help, including contacting the Embassy and all. For a couple days, we weren't sure what happened, but over the weekend we learned that Chris followed through. Joel took the off topic community down, so we migrated to another site, which is still active.
Odd seeing this story here. - RadiantBeing, on 01/19/2008, -8/+34Witnesses saw a huge man dressed in a black leather jacket who spoke with an Austrian accent.
- mattrmcg, on 01/19/2008, -2/+28I found it interesting that a majority of those working in the AI field were bipolar
- combatchuck, on 01/19/2008, -1/+26Cliff says: ***** you, you can read.
- saisumimen, on 01/19/2008, -0/+211. It's blindingly obvious you did not read the article.
2. Way to not get the joke.
3. Don't post any more. - Singularitarian, on 01/19/2008, -0/+20Marvin Minsky's description of chronic pain as a "programming bug", which had seemed dry and technical when I first read it in The Emotion Machine, became incredibly poignant in this context.
- bat-21, on 01/19/2008, -0/+20You know you're a hardcore geek when you're in a standoff with police, one of the cops yells "Send in the robot", and the first thought that pops into your head is "OH GOODY!".
- reddikilowatt, on 01/19/2008, -0/+19So that's how they came up with Digg!
- dbre2, on 01/19/2008, -1/+19"How do you keep garbage out without any form of validation mechanism? ... All you have to do is try to [imagine] Slashdot without the moderation system to see what's going to happen to your database."
... - beercosoftware, on 01/19/2008, -4/+21"but McKinstry's lack of business skills had become apparent. He had lined up no commercial partners or applications and apparently had no intention of honoring any of the promises he'd made to his "shareholders.""
What happened is pretty darn obvious. They forgot that the purpose of technology is to make money.
That educational research can not easily be translated in the marketplace. Oh the things we would all do if we didn't have to worry about our software making money. But we can't and that's real life. - jstone, on 01/19/2008, -1/+18And they called me crazy for building a heavily defended bunker and an EMP device!
- pixel, on 01/19/2008, -1/+17Hang on a minute... I did 3D stuff on my TRS-80 Model 1 (with 4k of ram), still have my Amiga 1000 (etc etc) and my copy of The Society of Mind by Minsky still sits on my bookshelf. My all time fav movie is 2001. *****, what's gonna happen to me?
- darthom, on 01/19/2008, -0/+15Both of these men should be admired for their bold, although misguided, attempt to codify intelligence. Even Minsky got it wrong. Intelligence is the ability to generalize perceptions to arrive at knowledge that perpetuates one's own survival. Period. No morality, no social or societal forms, functions, niceties, whatsoever. If the generalization should reduce to a fact that some sort of social interaction is necessary for survival, this merely demonstrates that intelligence exists. Common sense is one codification of intelligence. Even sex, used for the perpetuation of dual gender species, evolved from asexual intelligence. To mimic intelligence is far more difficult than knowledge. The two are often confused and intermixed.
- digdugge, on 01/19/2008, -7/+22Skynet is real people! If we dont kill all the AI pioneers then a robotic holocaust is going to occur 10-15 years from now. How do I know this? I am from the future and have witnessed it. Come with me if you want to live.
- inactive, on 01/19/2008, -1/+16HAL: "Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over. "
- darthom, on 01/19/2008, -0/+13Do I believe in this statement? Yes, of course I do, and then again, no I do not.
- knodi, on 01/19/2008, -1/+14Couldn't stop reading. Amazing.
- whyufail, on 01/19/2008, -0/+13Anyone have a larger version of that artwork? Larger than the one in the article I mean.
- Treshnell, on 01/19/2008, -1/+13Very interesting, but it doesn't really explore "what really happened."
- sr3yas, on 01/19/2008, -1/+12Wow great story but I still dont know why push commited suicide, being an investigation and all... the main question was left unanswered.
- beercosoftware, on 01/19/2008, -0/+11Yeah, that actually is what I meant. I rarely take the independently wealthy into account. I guess I'm insensitive that way. :(
- bigsteve, on 01/19/2008, -1/+11Yea, it felt like 5 pages on McKinsky, and then "Push hurt his back. Chronic pain is terrible, "bug in our programming." Push died by inhaling helium, almost like McKinsky. The end."
- jackminardi, on 01/19/2008, -0/+9wow, that was very touching. im sure the whole story would make a good movie, they are both such awesome characters.
- encrypteduser, on 01/19/2008, -2/+10Many scientists fall to this same suicidal fate. Institutions which promote higher learning and ground breaking technology should closely monitor the mental health of their students and faculty.
- NozE8, on 01/19/2008, -0/+8All 19 days of it.
- saisumimen, on 01/19/2008, -0/+8Damn kids these days with your "MTV" and your "ADD".
- holyskeleton, on 01/19/2008, -7/+15he had a girlfriend?
- inactive, on 01/19/2008, -0/+8One of the problems with that attitude is this: if you are more concerned with making more money with your software than making your users happy when they use your software, your users will give their money to someone else who does make them happy when they do use their software.
One of the hidden problems of technological advancement is that each subsequent advancement gets more difficult for a single individual to create, and novelty is a requirement, so the bar is thusly raised for the developer. I do not envy your challenge, but I would approach it with this intent: develop your goods with the sole intent to please the end user. Success will naturally follow. - bigsteve, on 01/19/2008, -0/+7"..big guy on a bike, does he have anything to do with this?"..."No...no, I wouldn't worry about him."
- BoomShake007, on 01/19/2008, -1/+8Clearly you don't understand what's going on here. It's not trying to make a superhuman. It's trying to make an intelligence from nothing. If it is accomplished, it would shed tremendous light on the possible workings of our own minds as well as provide the foundation to build a mind that far surpasses anything our own could be bred/evolved/spliced into in any acceptable timeframe.
- Schneckehaus, on 01/19/2008, -0/+7I think that could be true in any far fetched philosophical endeavors (the first astronomers and physicists and alchemists, for example). It takes a madman to pursue the improbable, and more than likely it takes a madman to show us he was right all along. Sadly, history is filled with more failures than successes. It's a shame they died, although I don't personally agree with their methods. I think common sense is a result, not a cause, of intelligence.
- mtrisk, on 01/19/2008, -0/+7Yeah, we poked fun at him at kuro5hin as well - nobody believed mindpixel actually had a chance of working. When I found out he had committed suicide though, I felt weird - sure we teased him, but nobody expected him to off himself over mean, and ultimately irrelevant things people say on the internet.
- Akraz, on 01/19/2008, -2/+9Good story. I usually dont read that much on the comp but that was different, I had to keep reading o.O
- Maloney, on 01/19/2008, -1/+85. PROFIT!!!
- saisumimen, on 01/19/2008, -0/+7Hell, even Digg has mods, or as they are known internally, "janitors".
- factory81, on 01/19/2008, -0/+7Best article of 08 so far.
- JorgeGT, on 01/19/2008, -1/+7"Suicide" for the good of Mankind.
- inactive, on 01/19/2008, -0/+6Precisely my sentiments. An intriguing story but it just leaves me more puzzled than I was just by reading the title.
- jagermeistr, on 01/19/2008, -0/+6McKinstry's AI is posting on wpg.general
- soifranc, on 01/19/2008, -2/+8Too bad the question in the title isn't answered. What really happened?
- WinnipegTaylie, on 01/20/2008, -1/+7re: Chris and his Winnipeg experience.
I would like to add my 3 cents to this online conversation with respect to Chris, since I knew him since the early 1980s and had a fair bit of admiration for what he was able to accomplish.
However, I would say that although this story was a good one, I would have liked to see it draw more upon some of the underlying causes of his suicide.
Yes, Chris suffered from diagnosed mental issues but I would suggest that the Internet and his very tortured flame wars experience with it over the years had a great role in the final suicide.
We know place a lot more attention on the topic of cyber bullying but one need only go through the archives back in the post 1994 era to see the relentless and brutal attacks that Chris took on the newsgroup in Winnipeg, called wpg.general.
Winnipeg is a prairie town in Manitoba, Canada which had a newsgroup populated by perhaps 20 or 30 people but a handful made it their lifes mission to make Chris's life as miserable as possible.
Even to this day you can see the type of person on that newsgroup who posts in his name, from a supposed morgue slab.
Go and read some of the not-cancelled/archived posts and see the type of unbelievable flames that went on there.
These flames got even worse after they knew that he had mental distress issues and had been incarcerated for holding up a gun store in Toronto.
What kind of sick minds would attack someone like that I ask.
The type found on wpg.general.
One of his worst critics was actually a 40 year old University philosophy professor from our own city who took great joy in having the most hostile conversations on line with him using some very unsavory language.
My contact with Chris began in the 80s while I was operating an online BBS bookstore (he considered it to be a precursor to Amazon.com).
We shared a passion for technology and business and later we had planned to partner up in an interative audiotext business in Toronto(he backed out at the last minute leaving me to go there by myself).
I later operated a training video business (shareviewstv) which was being set up in 1999ish to allow users to post their own training videos online (a precursor to todays YouTube).
Anyhow, the next article could explore more of what happens to people who are cyber bullied to the extent that they eventually take their own lives.
Early on, I tried to get the posters to attack me instead of Chris online because I was not quite sure what he was capable of.
We have since seen countless Columbine type situations but nobody on this newsgroup seemed to care.
We even had the same 5 posters continually flame a well known incarcerated multiple murderer (Fabricant)...his son posted for him apparently.
My last actual contact with Chris was when he moved to Chile.
Nobody online believed that he was there so Chris asked anyone to phone him and I did.
He seemed to be happy there.
I rememberr a happier time when he started an online soap opera business, called cr6 and I attended his wonderful opening gala party and saw his jaguar that he like to talk about. (could have been a rental?)
Sure he was one of the great marketers of all time in our city, and was able to get press in almost every media.
His business eventually failed as did most during the dot com craze..and he owed some small amounts of moneyin town to hotels and movie crews and the like...like so manyother dot commers.
Sure he had a divorce but with his mental challenges..would that really be a surprise.
Did he get the help in the community?
I don't know but he certainly did not get any help from the cyber community.
It was always to me like watching a pack of hungry wolves mercilessly attacking an injured stag.
Yes he brought it on himself..but reallly.
Once you knew that he already attempted a suicde in the gun store...wouldn't you think that the average person online or off would cut him some slack?
Just how many times to you jab a person like that until something happened.
I hope that you have the peace now in death Chris, that perhaps you weren't able to find in life.
I do believe that you enjoyed your time of life for the most part and if you were still here I would still share a meal and conversation with you.
The others, I wish that they feel the severe and sombre guilt that they should feel.
Don
Winnipeg - MiddleOfNowhere, on 01/19/2008, -0/+5Other than the author of this comment, who undoubtedly has already done many great deeds for the greater good of mankind.
- Myztry, on 01/20/2008, -0/+5People so often confuse knowledge, intelligence and indeed wisdom. They are related but fundamentally different concepts.
Intelligence is the ability to derive knowledge by combining pre-conceptions (knowledge) to form unique perceptions. This knowledge is linked and weighted in order to derive further perceptions from the pool. Knowledge (like a database) is useless if it bares no (linked) relationship to other perceptions. That is the essential learning element. Their systems had only one sterile means of entering perception into the system.
Though pure intelligence isn't necessarily human intelligence, they didn't affect the weighting of pre-conceptions with agenda, emotive, instinctual,etc modifiers. They merely focused on artificial knowledge, which can help the expression of intelligence, does not define it. Really they achieved nothing except a misguided chasing of their own mental deficiencies, failing to self destruction. - MiddleOfNowhere, on 01/19/2008, -0/+5And that is why your generation will end up living Idiocracy.
Attention span of a gold fish.
And proud of it. -
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