Marvin Minsky (born 1927), pioneering US computer and artificial intelligence scientist. Minsky studied at Harvard University before embarking on a distinguished career in artificial intelligence and robotics. In 1951 he designed and built with another colleague the first neural network learn- ing machine, modelled on human brain cells. He later founded the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology (MIT) Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and in 1985 co-founded MIT's Media Lab, where he now works as Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences. He is the author of numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction, and inventor of the con- focal scanning microscope. Photographed in 1995.