Weighted Sums of Random Kitchen Sinks: Replacing minimization with randomization in learning

Randomized neural networks are immortalized in this AI Koan: In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. I am training a randomly wired neural net to play tic-tac-toe,'' Sussman replied. Why is the net wired randomly?'' Sussman replied, I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play.'' Minsky then shut his eyes.