Stork: Now for the converse: How was your science fiction -- specifically your book The Turing Option -- influenced by your science?

Minsky: Well, I thought that science fiction was a good venue for exploring the implications of AI. It helps you to be clearer about the implications of your work. In The Turing Option, I was particularly interested in the value of information, such as corporate secrets. It was also a lot of fun to write!

Stork: Do you read current science fiction -- William Gibson, for example?

Minsky: I'm not interested in novels about how to break machines. I started, but couldn't read Neuromancer, and didn't see any new ideas in it. The cyberpunk authors are primarily interested in atmosphere rather than ideas, and that doesn't satisfy me.

Stork: So, you seem dismayed by many of the directions in AI? What would you advocate for the field to bring us closer to building a HAL?

Minsky: We have got to get back to the deepest questions of AI and general intelligence and quit wasting time on little projects that don't contribute to the main goal. We can get back to them later.

Stork: Supposing the field follows your suggestion, how long until we can make a HAL?

Minsky: I'm still a realist: If we work really hard - and smart - we can have something like a HAL in between four and four hundred years. I suppose if we're lucky, then, we can make it by 2001!