S8 Ep291: THE AI WINTER Colleague Gary Rivlin. The history of Frank Rosenblatt's neural networks, their dismissal by Marvin Minsky in favor of rules-based computing, and the decades-long "winter" before the resurgence of machine learning. NUMBER 11
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.6 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
THE AI WINTER Colleague Gary Rivlin. The history of Frank Rosenblatt's neural networks, their dismissal by Marvin Minsky in favor of rules-based computing, and the decades-long "winter" before the resurgence of machine learning. NUMBER 11
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batsler. Spending time with the journalist and extremely helpful |
| 0:07.7 | journalist, Gary Rivlin. His new book is AI Valley, Microsoft, Google, and the trillion-dollar race |
| 0:16.0 | to cash in on artificial intelligence called AI. We need to meet the personalities who drive the development of what we now regard as magic. |
| 0:30.6 | Mustafa Suleiman. |
| 0:32.7 | Mustafa Suleiman is born overseas and he is the child of Pakistani immigrants. His father an engineer |
| 0:43.4 | in Pakistan is a taxi driver in London. You've spoken a great deal about AI with Mr. Suleiman. |
| 0:53.1 | What's he like? What do we need to know about his personality? |
| 0:57.1 | Actually, Suleiman is Syrian. |
| 0:59.1 | His father, in fact, did go to Pakistan. |
| 1:03.0 | So I mean, someone was fascinating. |
| 1:05.0 | You know, I joke he's the British version of the Silicon Valley archetype. |
| 1:11.2 | He dropped out of Oxford, not Harvard or Stanford. |
| 1:15.4 | So he, very curious mind. |
| 1:18.4 | He was into politics. |
| 1:19.8 | He worked for a little bit in negotiations to help resolve conflict and all, |
| 1:27.1 | but really wanted to make his impact. |
| 1:29.3 | He was really inspired by Bill Gates, you know, raising all this money and then using that |
| 1:34.0 | money to have an impact on the world. |
| 1:37.2 | And, you know, by chance, he runs into a childhood friend or the older brother of his |
| 1:43.2 | best friend from childhood. |
| 1:45.0 | They're actually playing poker at a casino in London. |
| 1:47.8 | And, you know, the two of them, this is in 2010, the two of them start talking about the |
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