The lectures are great but not content-heavy. Professor Minsky goes on tangents, rants, and takes questions most of the time but it's all entertaining and somewhat informative. I suggest reading The Emotion Machine book for more of the theory.
I think lot of things like modular architecture are still partially valid but I only have brief idea of his all views. I am sure some have been updated or falsified.
interesting reference list - this course seems to discuss specifically layers for cognitive systems. I think "society of mind" addressed more general concepts and ideas about cognition and semantics.
http://aurellem.org/society-of-mind/