Stanford 'Intro To AI' Course Offered Free Online

Ahh AI by Osgeld · 2011-08-04 05:22 · Score: 1

Just like personal robots, flying cars, and apartments on the moon, a worth while dream.

Re:Ahh AI by Zaphod+The+42nd · 2011-08-04 05:43 · Score: 2

If you think machine learning is a dream, you're living under a rock. Neural net models of a synapse based brain may not be as advanced as our brains, but they're certainly capable of some pretty powerful things. And that form of simulated AI is only one genre of artificial intelligence, there's still hill climbing / gradient ascent and simulated annealing which use monte carlo to initialize to random variables, slowly iterate changes, observe those changes, and then make decisions based on the results. Its a very developed field with many, many applications.

AI doesn't just mean chatbots that fail to pass a turing test. AI also applies to basic logic determination, even things like A* search are a form of artificial intelligence. Its a major domain of computer science, don't blow it off just because of the name.

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Re:Ahh AI by perpenso · 2011-08-04 05:44 · Score: 1

Just like personal robots, flying cars, and apartments on the moon, a worth while dream.
Or the robots assembling and inspecting parts on a production line, or autonomous vehicles navigating from point A to point B on land or in the air, or software that screens medical imagery to hilight anomalies for doctors, ..., character recognition, voice recognition, facial recognition, ... All of these are applications of AI. Pardon the emphasis on computer vision related examples, computer vision was my research area in grad school.
Re:Ahh AI by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2011-08-04 06:56 · Score: 1

I work in the power grid automation field and AI is even used there to solve things like distribution of power across the grid (transmission network applications) and I have heard of it being used in or proposed to be used in vehicles to control the timing and fuel injection systems as more sensors and and data is gathered. Additionally this usually comes up when discussing switching to electronically operated valves as well. This would allow the engine to operate better across a broader range of speed, temperature, pressure and humidity.

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Time to offend someone
Re:Ahh AI by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 22:16 · Score: 0

I think the marriage between neuroscience and computing science says it all, frankly. One learns from the other and builds on the other. It's an integrated world, and an integrated science, from the very small to the very big.
I know OP hasn't. So to everyone else, please don't blow off psych/neuro because of Freud either!

Sounds... awesome... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:24 · Score: 0

What is this? Open Learning?

COMMUNISTS I SAY.

Re:Sounds... awesome... by Enderandrew · 2011-08-04 05:36 · Score: 3, Informative

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://www.khanacademy.org/
http://www.ted.com/
Standford isn't first to this game, but I still applaud them.

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Re:Sounds... awesome... by Amouth · 2011-08-04 07:31 · Score: 1

they are the first that does it just like the normal course - with graded work - and completion - for free. all the others you list are just references and the material.

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'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Re:Sounds... awesome... by mrchaotica · 2011-08-04 08:28 · Score: 1

For me, the graded work and scheduling is the key. It's the first free online course that includes a strategy to prevent procrastination!

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"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Sounds... awesome... by Amouth · 2011-08-04 08:53 · Score: 1

not just prevent procrastination but to guide you through the content in a structured and logical manner.

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'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'

Credit? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:27 · Score: 0

Is it for USA only, and Is there any way to get credit for this from your home country?

Re:Credit? by YodasEvilTwin · 2011-08-04 05:32 · Score: 1

Presumably since it's online, anyone can take it. The article says only Stanford students will get credit, but if you can convince your own university to give you credit for it ... do it!
Re:Credit? by DrgnDancer · 2011-08-04 05:36 · Score: 2

It doesn't look like it's a credit course for anyone who isn't a registered Stanford student. They give you a certificate of completion (Which, when combined with $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee), but not actual course credit. On the other hand, this is a course taught by two of the top researchers in the field. It's probably worth it just to learn something. I'm seriously considering this. I don't know a lot about coding AI, beyond some really high level theory; and while I'm sure that a ten week course with 10,000 of my closest friends won't make me an expert... It could be fun.

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I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Re:Credit? by Creepy · 2011-08-04 06:18 · Score: 1

Don't expect to be doing a lot of coding AI in an intro course. If they're anything like my AI classes, they are 9 parts conceptual, 1 part pseudo-code. Maybe you'll get to write a bit of Lisp in the meantime (AI people think Lisp is the language of the gods, and trying to change that is like prying CoBOL from bankers or FORTRAN from Mech-E people).
Re:Credit? by Amouth · 2011-08-04 07:35 · Score: 1

i already stuck the syllabus on my calendar - i don't take classes for "credit" i take them to actually learn something interesting and/or useful to me. this is a great opportunity, that may not present it's self again.

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'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Re:Credit? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 10:17 · Score: 0

(AI people think Lisp is the language of the gods, and trying to change that is like prying CoBOL from bankers or FORTRAN from Mech-E people)
or ruby from bad programmers.
Re:Credit? by dakameleon · 2011-08-04 12:23 · Score: 1

Modern bankers are like that with Java. COBOL is gradually dying as mainframes get replaced, but it's the Java behemoth that replaces it, so six o' one, as the saying goes.

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Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.

AI Thesis! by TaoPhoenix · 2011-08-04 05:29 · Score: 4, Funny

Proposed:

A software program which can successfully pass this course.

Related: Turing Test

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Re:AI Thesis! by jank1887 · 2011-08-04 05:32 · Score: 2

an AI avatar to do just what you said is a pre-req for the advanced course. makes for a quiet classroom.
Re:AI Thesis! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 06:08 · Score: 0

I think you'll get full credit for a software program that can successfully grade the assignments for this course. They might even offer you a job.

TFA is wrong by YodasEvilTwin · 2011-08-04 05:31 · Score: 3, Informative

The actual website for the course says "The class runs from Sept 26 through Dec 16, 2011." http://www.ai-class.com/

Re:TFA is wrong by daenris · 2011-08-04 05:41 · Score: 4, Informative

Actually no, the article is right. The online portion starts on October 2nd. If you look at the course website, under Course Description it makes this clear.
Re:TFA is wrong by YodasEvilTwin · 2011-08-04 05:48 · Score: 1

That also says that the course starts Sept. 27. So EVERYONE is wrong :P
Re:TFA is wrong by daenris · 2011-08-04 05:53 · Score: 1

I suspect maybe Stanford's term starts the 26th and runs through December 16th? Because the course website also lists the last day of the course as December 8th, not the 16th, though it doesn't mention when the final is, but for the online portion the final is due December 18th. So yeah, seems like they can't agree with themselves on dates.

Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by parallel_prankster · 2011-08-04 05:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

I dont buy that. There were times in grad school when a class of 20 students generated enough questions on a topic that threw the instructors schedule out of whack. I know this is not grad school but I am assuming there are enough good students in Stanford itself and most people who will sign up voluntarily will be the ones who are interested about it. I still love the idea though. Although, it makes me wonder how the students feel about it. Stanford is pretty expensive. They have paid all that money only for coming to class now, given that the exact same class material and the instructors as well are available to anyone for free ?

Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:36 · Score: 0

I don't think there are only 15 good questions out of 10000 questions... think of it being 15 unique questions out of 10000 questions.
Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:38 · Score: 0

I dont buy that. There were times in grad school when a class of 20 students generated enough questions on a topic that threw the instructors schedule out of whack. I know this is not grad school but I am assuming there are enough good students in Stanford itself and most people who will sign up voluntarily will be the ones who are interested about it.
I still love the idea though. Although, it makes me wonder how the students feel about it. Stanford is pretty expensive. They have paid all that money only for coming to class now, given that the exact same class material and the instructors as well are available to anyone for free ?
Knowledge is free. Credits cost money.
Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by Zaphod+The+42nd · 2011-08-04 05:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

You're paying for the service, not just the knowledge. Having the professor / TA available for answering your questions, having other students around to study with, ask questions of, work on projects with, etc. College is about the environment. Stanford and other big name schools have begun putting their lectures on youtube available for free to anyone; not even requiring an account or that you sign up for a course. Did this send people to leave the college in droves and just watch the youtube videos? No. Because you still get the certification of a degree, which youtube doesn't give you (although that BS is meaning less and less these years). Some people don't need a teacher, they buy the books and don't go to college and teach themselves. And those people are already doing that. This helps spread some general knowledge, mostly intro 101 courses, but its not going to make you an established expert on a subject overnight. I don't think students will be upset at all.

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Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by perpenso · 2011-08-04 05:54 · Score: 2

Knowledge is free. Credits cost money.
Knowledge costs time.
Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by ipwndk · 2011-08-04 06:39 · Score: 1

It is also a great service in terms of knowledge sharing. I watched a lot of youtube videos from Stanford and others, while studying CS and AI. It's great for helping with reading up, as I can't remember everything that happened at my own lectures. Also some professors explain some things better than others; if confused about something in your lecture, look it up from other sources, and clear it up. In that sense I think it benefits CS study in general. If someone outside of college can learn it in this form, I do not know. Personally I doubt it. The ability to ask questions and to meet with other students and TA's, helps clear up a lot of the confusion that might arise. And I did confused a lot of times, until someone had a golden nugget to share that put in the missing piece. It's the same with reading a book; reading it doesn't mean understanding it. Sometimes you need outside help.

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01 REDEFINE REALITY.
Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by LearnToSpell · 2011-08-04 06:49 · Score: 1

And time is money! Therefore, uhh... I don't know. Haven't taken the course yet. That's as far as I got. :(

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Haida Manga
Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 07:50 · Score: 0

Although, it makes me wonder how the students feel about it. Stanford is pretty expensive. They have paid all that money only for coming to class now, given that the exact same class material and the instructors as well are available to anyone for free ?
I doubt the students will care at all as long the teaching is still effective; they are paying for college credit towards a Stanford degree. The online students taking the course for free will get neither one of those things.
Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 10:24 · Score: 0

"Although, it makes me wonder how the students feel about it. Stanford is pretty expensive. They have paid all that money only for coming to class now"
Because they're robots.
Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 18:33 · Score: 0

We'll be teaching Stanford students in person. - Sebastian Thrun
Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by SoothingMist · 2011-08-05 03:08 · Score: 0

I can dig that one me man. During a Calculus course the professor asked my friend and I to stop coming to class. He said we asked really good questions and he thoroughly enjoyed the discussion. But, the rest of the class was not up to it and he needed to teach at their level to get them up to speed. This was one good professor. He taught well and it was very motivating to have him as a mentor and teacher. Such a relationship is key to education. That is why I am unhappy with "online learning" and large classes. This may work for skills training but not for education.
Re:Only 15 good questions per 10000 students by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-05 07:13 · Score: 0

they also get a piece of paper that says they graduated from Stanford lol.

Using AI to teach the course... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

about AI is a little too recursive for me...

"When asked how they would deal with ten thousand students, Professor Thrun replied, 'We'll let Skynet handle the sorting and choose the best questions'"

Re:Using AI to teach the course... by Obfuscant · 2011-08-04 08:01 · Score: 1

"When asked how they would deal with ten thousand students, Professor Thrun replied, 'We'll let Skynet handle the sorting and choose the best questions'"
So if you ask a mundane, typical question you get no answer?
It was obvious that an AI course being offered for free would be taught by AI programs. This is the perfect testing grounds for the latest generation of AI programs. Much more difficult than "what is AI, Alex?" or "who was that strange woman in your bedroom, Alex?"
Re:Using AI to teach the course... by orkysoft · 2011-08-04 09:01 · Score: 1

I think they'll just make an FAQ with about 15 questions and answers, which should answer almost all questions the students are expected to have.

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I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Re:Using AI to teach the course... by syousef · 2011-08-04 09:27 · Score: 1

"When asked how they would deal with ten thousand students, Professor Thrun replied, 'We'll let Skynet handle the sorting and choose the best questions'"
So if you ask a mundane, typical question you get no answer?
No, Skynet sends a Terminator to the past to kill your mum for wasting Professor Thrun's time.

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These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Re:Using AI to teach the course... by Obfuscant · 2011-08-04 09:30 · Score: 1

I think they'll just make an FAQ with about 15 questions and answers, which should answer almost all questions the students are expected to have.
If simply reading an answer was what learning was all about, then why not just read the book and know everything?
I think the reason for recitiations and help sessions is for the interactiveness of the teacher/student experience. Eliza spitting back a canned answer to what it thinks your question is isn't teaching.

this is great! by Thud457 · 2011-08-04 05:36 · Score: 2

Now I don't have to live in Massachusetts to learn me about some artificial intelligence!

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the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Re:this is great! by Desler · 2011-08-04 05:47 · Score: 1

Why would you have to live in Massachusetts to go to Stanford?
Re:this is great! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:48 · Score: 2, Funny

Being that Stanford in is California and not in Massachusetts, I'd say you are the winner since Artificial Intelligence will never be a match for Genuine Stupidity.
Re:this is great! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 06:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

What's your deal?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2359264&cid=36951064
Re:this is great! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 09:08 · Score: 0

I thought the OP was thinking about MIT ??
Re:this is great! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 13:15 · Score: 0

Um, I assume the parent meant he/she no longer had to rely on MIT for enlightenment.
Re:this is great! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-05 02:31 · Score: 0

it was fairly obviously an MIT joke
Re:this is great! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-05 02:40 · Score: 0

on second thougts it could also relate the recent slashdot story about the Massachusetts lottery
Re:this is great! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-15 21:40 · Score: 0

I think the poster is probably referring to the fact that MIT has has its courses available online for years - though you don't get graded or a certificate of completion.

Level of education by CurryCamel · 2011-08-04 05:36 · Score: 1

Interesting. Now is a good chance to find out for one-self if the famous USA universities really are as elite as their reputation. And I will learn basics of AI at the side!

I already learned (thanks Wikipedia!) that Stanford is not part of the ivy league, though :)

Re:Level of education by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:40 · Score: 0

Ivy League is about the "gentleman C" and learning how to throw the prep look.
Re:Level of education by Desler · 2011-08-04 05:50 · Score: 1

Great. What does that have to do with Stanford which is not part of the Ivy League group of schools? It is lumped in to what is called "Ivy Plus" but that's not the same thing.
Re:Level of education by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 06:02 · Score: 0

The big difference between the elite schools and the normal schools is not what they teach.
But How they teach it and with what equipment they do this.
I work at one of the best scoring universities in my country according to some agency that researches this (top 100).

And there is a BIG difference, I've taken some courses over here and when i see the lectures of MIT, Berkely or Standford.
I feel very strange it's the exact same thing the universities over here teach us, they even simplify everything a lot, you could even say they treat their students like babies.
But ... in those lectures it's clear to me the people who teach love their field and love teaching which isn't the case in most universities.
And that's how you teach, you need to make your students comfortable and engaged and that will only happen
if you love your field

The last and almost the only teacher I had who was like that was in highschool.
And the stuff he teached is the only stuff i still remember today.
Re:Level of education by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 06:09 · Score: 0

Stanford student here.
I don't think you'll be able to make much of a judgement. For one thing, it's just a single sample. Furthermore, for most courses you'll be able to find good teachers at various schools. The big named institutions don't have a significant advantage here. Norvig and Thrun may have special stature in their fields, but that has little to do with good teaching, and is unlikely to have much bearing in more introductory courses.
In my experience, I've found that professors are hit or miss with respect to teaching, and it often has little correlation with their institution or their success on the research side of things. However, I've also found that CS departments are especially good, perhaps due to higher student enrolment, at finding and funding lecturers and teaching faculty. These people can be, and often are, absolutely exceptional, far exceeding most research faculty. Fortunately, Stanford places a strong emphasis on hiring the best teachers, as well as researchers, but I guess you won't get a taste of that from this course.
As for grades, I find Stanford to actually be less consistent than other schools. Sadly, course averages depend a lot on the professor. Some don't curve and are happy with a C average, others average closer to B+ or A-. Worse, Stanford doesn't report course averages in transcripts, so if you happened to take a course with one professor who didn't curve, you may end up looking much worse in comparison to your friend who took it with another professor who adjusted to a B average. I don't think there is too much grade inflation in CS, since the school is very selective and the students generally hard-working, but the inconsistency is quite unfair.
Anyway, I'm really glad that they're opening this course up. Stanford records dozens of courses each quarter and could easily release the content, but sadly they haven't done so. Perhaps this will set a new precedent at the school. MIT had the right idea. There's no reason Stanford can't take it further.
Re:Level of education by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 06:12 · Score: 0

It only works if you're adaptable to this format. When I was deciding whether or not to take a CS grad class at Berkeley, I watched some of the videos online first as they had taped previous years' classes. It was interesting material, but I got worn out on watching the videos after only a couple of classes. Joining the class was so much better -- not only because then I actually enjoyed the classes, but because then I met some of the students and had a few good conversations with one of the professors. If I had been more of a shmoozer, I could have easily walked away with a good job just from that one class (I got a summer job offer anyway, solely on the basis of the material I dealt with in my final project).
Re:Level of education by mikael · 2011-08-04 09:06 · Score: 1

At the top universities, it will be the authors themselves teaching you the material direct from fresh research papers. Other places, they will be teaching you from other peoples books.
The bigger institutions tend to have larger research groups and more high-profile projects. If a smaller university does work on a niche area that becomes a new key research field, the whole research group can end up moving to a larger place.

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Not what you think by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:37 · Score: 0

Just like personal robots, flying cars, and apartments on the moon, a worth while dream.

AI does not just mean electronic human brains.

Re:Not what you think by Osgeld · 2011-08-04 05:46 · Score: 2, Informative

CS221 is the introductory course into the field of Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University. It covers basic elements of AI, such as knowledge representation, inference, machine learning, planning and game playing, information retrieval, and computer vision and robotics. CS221 is a broad course aimed to teach students the very basics of modern AI. It is prerequisite to many other, more specialized AI classes at Stanford University.
sounds like electronic human brains is the goal to me
Re:Not what you think by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:56 · Score: 0

Not really, a human brain does all those things and more. An AI will generally do a small subset of those things (like play chess with machine vision).
Re:Not what you think by ipwndk · 2011-08-04 06:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

The field of AI is no longer focused on creating humans brains as far as I've learned from my studies. They did dream big back then when the field first came to be, but the complexity of the problem became apparent. It's simply, currently, not possible.
There is planning, search and logic AI, which finds the best possible plans for different problems, and is often used in manufacturing. Such as designing computer chips, or for instructions to robots or cranes that builds, sorts or package. AI is capable of approximating solutions to problems that cannot be done through algorithmic means; as such AI often deal with problems in NP.
Another field is game AI, which I know most about. There's a plethora of sub-fields here. The traditional game AI dealt with solving games, and has influenced many games such as chess. (AI hasn't solved chess, but found many end games that humans did not know, and found solutions to end games that humans have theorized about for over a hundred years) Modern game AI concerns itself with AI for video games. The goals are many. Fun and challenging opponents. Autonomous opponents that learn during play and gain new knowledge. Procedural content generation in respect to the player and much more. Not that much has been done in the industry, but in the field there's a lot of focus on machine learning techniques that learn the games themselves based on some criteria set by the creators.
I haven't read anything about AI that attempts to be human-like in the sense they pursued earlier lately. I've read several times however, that the Turing test is faulty and should be ignored; it serves no purpose in the field. The new purpose is to create machines that can do some task, and do it well. If its deemed intelligent by humans is of no consequence. If it does a job better than a human, then it is an advance. That it is worse than optimal is a strength, because as I said, the problems often dealt with are not solvable optimally. (At least not until quantum computing, albeit I know nothing about how that works; it seems to be another new dream, so if its like the dream of AI in the beginning, it will probably not solve all, but just make advances)

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01 REDEFINE REALITY.
Re:Not what you think by Zaphod+The+42nd · 2011-08-04 06:52 · Score: 2

" Modern game AI concerns itself with AI for video games. "
No. Not AT ALL. Yes, game AI is a small part of it, but modern artificial intelligence has left game AI waaaay behind in the dust. Game AI is mostly about specialized logic to the rules of the game (pathing, observing enemy moves, etc.), maintaining a priority queue of actions, and making the right responses when the right action is chosen. Out of the 4 artificial intelligence courses I took at college, one of which was graduate-level, we spoke about video game AI for a whole... never. No, we worked on gradient ascent algorithms, simulated annealing, hidden markov models, supervised machine learning, perceptrons, neural nets, but not so much game AI. Chess AI tends to be mostly just calculate all the possible board positions resulting from a given choice, and then the results of choices from those positions, and on and on. Its mostly a brute force problem, our hardware these days can just crunch the numbers. Go is much more challenging for real AI, and thats why we stink at making computers that can play it. If you're talking about videogame AI, thats really pretty simple and isn't AI as we refer to it in computer science. They're still pretty much the same as the FPS bots from Quake 3 or the RTS bots from starcraft. Not a ton of advancement has been done.

That said, the Berkeley Overmind starcraft AI team was pretty impressive, but just to show you how seperate game AI is from real AI, the Berkley team found developing a true starcraft playing AI to be beyond infeasible. So they dedicated themselves (months of development, mind you) to just building an AI that could rush zerg to mutalisks, and then mass mutalisks. Mutalisks are better at responding to tons of microinstructions, they can fly and they have ranged attacks, so a computer can better take advantage of them than say, a melee unit. But you see, the official Berkeley AI team couldn't even begin to handle worrying about build order, different strategies, the game is already insanely complicated. They had a hard enough time just scouting for enemy expansions and so on. And yet, Blizzard included a game AI that can play all factions and uses different unit types. Is it because Blizzard has a FAR better AI development team than the Berkeley research department? No. Its because the Starcraft 2 AI isn't really AI at all, its very specialized case logic. It doesn't learn, it doesn't adapt.

Oh, and it cheats, too. When you turn up the difficulty, they couldn't actually make the AI much better, so they just make it so that insane level computers get more resources than you do. That way its artificially stronger, but not any smarter.

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Re:Not what you think by RazorSharp · 2011-08-04 08:06 · Score: 1

If it does a job better than a human, then it is an advance.
I think that's what scares a lot of people.

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"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Re:Not what you think by White+Flame · 2011-08-04 10:05 · Score: 1

No, the goal is autonomous systems that can react appropriately to their environment according to their function and task. It has nothing to do with mimicking how a human brain works, although there are sub-fields of AI that do try to work on that.
Re:Not what you think by damiam · 2011-08-04 11:54 · Score: 1

You're right that most game AI doesn't use very sophisticated techniques, but just for the record it's not true that the Berkeley Overmind team found building a "true AI" (whatever that means) for Starcraft to be "beyond infeasible". They focused on mutas because they're easier to do micro with, but the higher-level strategic code is AFAIK pretty much race-agnostic. There's a build-order planner which can work with any set of building constraints you feed it, there's strategy selection which leverages results of scouting and just needs to know the basic details of units and buildings (e.g. if you observe the enemy building a Stargate, then as long as the AI has been told that Stargates produce air units and that Goliaths (say) can attack air units, then it will shift production towards Goliaths), there's a fair amount of prediction of when/where enemies will expand or attack that has to work for enemies of all races, and so on. The Overmind is certainly not a perfect rational agent (or even a perfect bounded-rational agent, which would be a more realistic goal), but it's much more sophisticated than a bunch of hacks around a mutalisk-micro script.
Source: I'm a Berkeley CS grad student, and I know a bunch of the Overmind authors and have been to a few of their meetings, though I didn't personally contribute code.

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It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Re:Not what you think by ipwndk · 2011-08-04 18:59 · Score: 1

I agree in regards to game AI; I said that there was a difference between research and the industry. In the industry it's just finite automata. In research it is neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, reinforcement learning, learning classifier systems, monte carlo techniques et cetera. My own master thesis is based on such AI. The reading I did on the field, also shows that others are researching in AI with these methods.
So yes, we agree. Game AI in research; machine learning and other complex techniques, Game AI in the industry; finite automata and other knowledge based techniques. However, since 2000, research has moved towards video games rather than board games; although research continue on board games of course. Thus the classic game AI, and modern game AI. Modern game AI is game AI applied to video games. For example, the video game I worked on, have its rules procedurally generated, and my AI agents must learn to play it through machine learning; that is a more difficult problem than Go or Chess. It makes sense that game AI should pursue solutions to harder games than Chess and Go, because not only is the challenge bigger, but it also have a potential use in the industry; researchers hope that at some point, the industry will begin using these techniques. It's still not the case however :(

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01 REDEFINE REALITY.
Re:Not what you think by ipwndk · 2011-08-04 19:04 · Score: 1

Oh, and why it is interesting to pursue AI that can play an unknown game; procedural generated games. You can evolve those, and evaluate them based on how the AI agents play the generated games. If you can make an AI that plays somewhat like a human, you can then in turn procedurally generate games that humans can play. Think of starcraft for example; you could perfectly balance the three races and each unit, through these means. Even adjust the general rules of the game, such as economy and what not. It might show that a third resource is necessary to result in balance. Who knows?

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01 REDEFINE REALITY.

Credit Transfers? by Ghoser777 · 2011-08-04 05:37 · Score: 1

Can I earn college credit that will transfer to other institutions? That's what I want to know.

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James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."

Re:Credit Transfers? by daenris · 2011-08-04 05:42 · Score: 1

No. The online course just offers a certificate from the instructors of the course. It will not count as college credit anywhere.
Re:Credit Transfers? by Zaphod+The+42nd · 2011-08-04 05:51 · Score: 1

I'm almost certain the answer is absolutely not. This is just something you're electing to do, for fun, for education. Its not actually a college course, you're not actually enrolled, and they will not give you any credit or say that you've passed the course or anything of that sort.

Effectively, they're letting you audit the course for free, over the internet. You get to see the work, you can do it along with the students if you'd like, you can see your grades comparison, you can watch all the lectures, but you're not being graded "for real". Normally even auditing a course costs a ton of money, so this is a huge benefit. If you want college credit though, you're gonna have to go fill a seat in a real classroom. That or try phoenix online xD

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Re:Credit Transfers? by Aladrin · 2011-08-04 05:52 · Score: 1

That's actually really good value. Just having the certificate is worth something if someone wants to know if you know the subject. I'm kind of surprised they would acknowledge successful completion with anything other than a 'good job!'.

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"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Re:Credit Transfers? by daenris · 2011-08-04 05:58 · Score: 1

I suspect the value of the certificate relies directly on how well-known and respected the instructors are in the field. Personally, I'm considering on going back to school for a Master's in Computer Science, and since I've been out of school for awhile and my undergrad degree is not in CS, I figure it couldn't hurt to have this certificate from Stanford AI instructors to show a more recent academic performance to complement my work experience.
Re:Credit Transfers? by darkstar949 · 2011-08-04 07:09 · Score: 1

Well, you aren't going to earn college credit that you can transfer; however, depending upon the school you might gain the information required to test out of a course and maybe get credit through that route. Very dependent upon the school though and the most you can usually get with that is just not having to take the course as a prerequisite.
Re:Credit Transfers? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 21:58 · Score: 0

And so, somebody points out the obvious benefit to the institution, or the catch, depending on your perspective.
They give you a non-Stanford certificate from the instructors that you should be able to use on your resume at least, while you're learning stuff for free (text books, time and the internet connection apparently doesn't count, nor does the timezone factors) so it's not a lose-win, or a scam, as far as I can tell :)

eBook not understood! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:42 · Score: 3, Funny

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, e-book, 3/E
Stuart Russell
Peter Norvig, Google Inc.
ISBN-10: 0132126842
ISBN-13: 9780132126847
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Copyright: 2010
Format: Electronic Book
Published: 12/29/2009
Status: Out of Print

I don't think that e-book means what they think it does :)

Re:eBook not understood! by SilentStaid · 2011-08-04 06:03 · Score: 1

>
I don't think that e-book means what they think it does :)
Inconceivable!

24/7 access to fellow smart people by peter303 · 2011-08-04 05:49 · Score: 1

The university is more than just a course lecture, its an environment. If I didnt know something I just asked across the coffee table or a door down the hall.

Re:24/7 access to fellow smart people by CurryCamel · 2011-08-04 06:22 · Score: 1

IMHO, the level of a university closely correlates with the level of education. Every university has a coffee room or two where to ask (and smart people who drink coffee in said rooms). That is true even for the company I work for! But I have no way of feeling up the atmosphere in Stanford, so I must extrapolate from my experiences at the local university, by comparing the level and atmosphere in this course.
Anyways, the true value of a university is measured by the level of knowledge/wisdom/insight that the people, who leave it upon graduation, have.

A way to sell textbooks? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:49 · Score: 0

Nice way to sell hundreds and thousands of Russell and Norvig textbooks. Snark aside, its all good.

Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by DickBreath · 2011-08-04 05:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

Haven't read his AI book "Artificial Intelligence, A Modern Approach".

But about 20 years ago when I was really into Common Lisp, I read his book "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp". It was one of the best books I had ever read. Lots of fantastic examples and code.

Makes me think I should get his "modern approach" book. Maybe think about the online course.

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I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.

Re:Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by ipwndk · 2011-08-04 06:12 · Score: 2

It's really good actually. It's part of my collection in "classic" AI.
It doesn't deal with neural networks, evolution or monte carlo sadly. But it does deal greatly with the Intelligent Agent (IA) architecture, which is the foundation of any AI, classic or not. And its chapters on search is superb; and you almost always need search. (Obviously DFS, BFS, Dijkstra, A* etc., are part of normal CS curriculum, but it delves into local search which usually is not part of CS curriculum as it is non-optimal and approximate)
It's also the best book on planning and propositional logics in AI I've read. Haven't had a great need for that myself, but those tools are actually very used in the industry to solve real problems. Some PHD students at my university have made a great local search based container stowage using some iterative local search based inference. It does not always produce an optimal solution, but it does most of the time, and its faster by a large magnitude (solved in a matter of minutes), as the problem is otherwise in NP (unsolvable in polynomial time).
After the book it's easy to jump into the research, because it has introduced you to the terminology. It's introduction chapter is also very nice, as it gives the history of AI research and accomplishments. Gives you an idea of where you are in the field when you read new research.
Oh but a warning; there's no code in the book. There's algorithms written in pseudocode. But it's expected that you implement yourself. If you're a good hacker, that's not that hard, but keep in mind the complexity yourself; the books complexity analysis does not include the data structures etc., so any implementation without the correct tools will be very slow. But AI is really something that should be learned after the CS foundations has been mastered. It does however explain in good detail how the algorithms, and how the theory works. Understand that, and you will have little trouble writing your code, and debugging the system. In my opinion that its much more satisfying, than just to copy a code snippet that you hardly understand. This approach forces you to understand, and therefore master it.

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01 REDEFINE REALITY.
Re:Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by ipwndk · 2011-08-04 06:32 · Score: 1

Oh, the container stowage problem is important economically and environmentally, because it shortens the time a container ship has to stay in harbor. Their research is obviously funded by that industry. Its product is simply a list of instructions to the crane operators, that results in both the fast unloading of containers, but also optimal placement; those two compliment each other.
Added it in with my thoughts of the book, because they based it on some of the theory of the book. Almost same algorithm, but obviously tweaked. Was part of the lecture, and was just nice to see a real example of the theory in the book being research on, and possible being utilized in the future by the industry ;)

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01 REDEFINE REALITY.
Re:Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 06:46 · Score: 0

> It doesn't deal with neural networks, evolution or monte carlo sadly
Later editions do have a section on neural networks (Chap 20.5 2nd Edition (International)) and Monte Carlo (Chap 14.5 2nd Edition (International)).
Agree with parent on it being a very good book. It covers a wide range of topics, and I have found it very useful to familiarise myself with the basics of various parts of ML and statistics.
Re:Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 08:35 · Score: 0

Russel/Norvig (aka "Artificial Intelligence, A Modern Approach") is the standard text for introductory AI classes in many colleges (at least it was when I took it in grad school). My guess is the people taking this class will learn a lot if they can keep up!
Re:Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 09:45 · Score: 0

I took a course in AI that used this book. It is a terrible book. Very poor editing, organization and explanations of basic/concrete concepts. Even though some of the concepts were not straight forward, there were times when the book was a hindrance to the concepts with unnecessary, long winded explanations for the sake of sounding intelligent (almost condescending...)
Now this could be a part of the other author's fault but I would recommend staying away from this book or using it as a reference for some sections (1st order logic and knowledge representations were good/useful sections)
Re:Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by Lando · 2011-08-04 14:13 · Score: 1

Looking forward to checking out the class. Took another AI class years ago which used this book, so I won't have to buy new material. It should be pretty good, since the course is being taught by the person that wrote the book. We'll see how it turns out, I expect a lot of people will drop the course as it actually turns out to be work. It's hard to imagine 100k people that would be interested in this sort of stuff beyond just a passing interest.

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/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
Re:Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 19:02 · Score: 0

I have the latest edition of the book ("Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach") and it devotes significant space to neural networks and monte carlo. DickBreath can check the chapter listing on the book's website to see for himself.
Re:Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by ipwndk · 2011-08-04 19:08 · Score: 1

Ah, it's time to update mine then. Bought it six year ago :)

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01 REDEFINE REALITY.
Re:Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 21:46 · Score: 0

That's good to know, because there are plenty of people who are interested and capable in the logic, structure and functions of AI that know shit all about computer programming and are probably better off that way. Basically a team approach, good programmers, good engineers, and people who know about intelligence and it's processes working with the foundational logic.
Re:Peter Norvig should be a good teacher by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-05 08:40 · Score: 0

It briefly covers genetic algorithms as part of local search. It also covers Neural networks as part machine learning.

iTunes U offers many classes ... by perpenso · 2011-08-04 05:50 · Score: 1

Interesting. Now is a good chance to find out for one-self if the famous USA universities really are as elite as their reputation. And I will learn basics of AI at the side! I already learned (thanks Wikipedia!) that Stanford is not part of the ivy league, though :)

Actually you've been able to do this for a while. Check out iTunes U, http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/what-is.html.

FWIW, Ivy League is a marketing gimmick. :-)

Re:iTunes U offers many classes ... by Steauengeglase · 2011-08-04 06:04 · Score: 2

Or don't check it out with iTunes. http://academicearth.org/
I've got to give it to Standford and MIT (and all of the other schools who have contributed to open courseware). They have done a service to everyone.

AI is the way to handle thousands of students by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:58 · Score: 0

Why wouldn't the professors write an AI program to teach the course. We don't need professors any more!

Like Music, News and other dinosaurs. by Ghiora · 2011-08-04 05:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

It is about time the universities go the way of the book, music, news, encyclopedia and information industries in which the Internet has brought down prices significantly. There is no justification to the huge amounts of money the universities charge for the education they provide and for the learning materials. This course is a live demonstration of how it can be done for pennies. The only thing that should cost more then a few dollars is final testing of a course which can be done for about $50.00 per course. Beyond that if remote testing is used it will be very hard for any one to get a whole degree by cheating on the total amount of courses needed to graduate. A few random tests on key subjects where you have to be present physically are more then enough to put an end to any shenanigans. The only reason it has not happened yet is psychological, people (those who study and those who hire) being conservative by nature want a degree from "a well known establishment". (Yes some courses need labs and cadavers but they are a small minority)

Re:Like Music, News and other dinosaurs. by f()rK()_Bomb · 2011-08-04 06:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

Only because the american model runs colleges like a business. Over here in europe university is basically free. My fees this year are 1.5k. There is a benefit to universities though, you get to meet and interact with a lot of smart people. Abandoning universities entirely is not the way to go, reforming the broken model is.

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"The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing." - Arthur C. Clarke ~1980
Re:Like Music, News and other dinosaurs. by Ghiora · 2011-08-04 06:28 · Score: 1

You will meet lots of people from many countries on line when taking on-line courses; if the courses are set up right. I am not for abandoning universities I am for making them adjust. Unfortunately like all normal organizations they are clinging to the money they made the old way..
Re:Like Music, News and other dinosaurs. by mosseh · 2011-08-04 07:17 · Score: 1

Only because the american model runs colleges like a business. Over here in europe university is basically free. My fees this year are 1.5k. There is a benefit to universities though, you get to meet and interact with a lot of smart people. Abandoning universities entirely is not the way to go, reforming the broken model is.
Clearly you don't live in the UK, where the majority of decent universities will be charging the maximum tuition fee of Â£9000 per year ($14.7k at the current exchange rate). University is most definitely not free here.
Re:Like Music, News and other dinosaurs. by f()rK()_Bomb · 2011-08-04 07:42 · Score: 1

That has only changed this year though right? It used to be more like 3k before the whole economic crisis. Even at that higher price its half the average price in america and id say the total amount over 4 years might be less than one year in the high level american universities.

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"The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing." - Arthur C. Clarke ~1980
Re:Like Music, News and other dinosaurs. by mosseh · 2011-08-04 07:49 · Score: 1

Yeah I'm currently paying about £3.3k which is the cap. Anyone starting next year gets completely shafted with an almost three-fold increase. In my opinion this government are idiots for not investing in education which is the future of the country. Guess I should be glad I don't live in America anyway!
Re:Like Music, News and other dinosaurs. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 08:28 · Score: 0

Free to the student you mean....
Re:Like Music, News and other dinosaurs. by swillden · 2011-08-04 11:55 · Score: 2

That has only changed this year though right? It used to be more like 3k before the whole economic crisis. Even at that higher price its half the average price in america and id say the total amount over 4 years might be less than one year in the high level american universities.
OTOH, lots of people go to American universities without paying tuition. I paid very little for my two four-year degrees... so little that I never borrowed a penny, or got assistance from my parents, or even had to work much.
I think lots of Europeans seriously overestimate the difficulty of attending a university in the US. The fact is that anyone who really wants to go can find a way. Those with the brains and the talent can even go to Stanford, MIT, etc. In fact many of the Ivy League schools effectively have a "funding guarantee" -- if you're good enough that they accept you, they will find a way for your tuition, fees and living expenses to be paid, and without graduating with a crushing debt load. I didn't graduate from an Ivy League school, so this is second-hand info... but it's from my brother-in-law who is a dean of students at Princeton and held a similar position at Harvard for a few years. He, by the way, got his Ph.D. from Princeton and not only never paid a penny for any part of his university education but was actually paid to go to school most of the time.
At the end of the day, university education in the US is somewhat like a progressive tax system: Only the wealthy pay full price, and the poorer you are the less you pay.
Well, unless you're dumb about it. And, granted, all too many students are, not bothering to look for the cost-effective way to pay for school and instead just loading up on debt. For some students the large debt load works fine, because their degrees ensure a large income which makes paying the debt easy. Others, though, screw their financial futures quite thoroughly.

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Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Re:Like Music, News and other dinosaurs. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 21:36 · Score: 0

Yeah the American system kind of irritates the rest of the world, though. Whilst US kids are being left out of the loop unless their parents are rich, the universities are trying to compete with private research firms that are into patents. So the universities have to commercialise the science to keep funding and/or charge the students a pretty penny. Meanwhile, the other universities in the world have to compete with US universities and research firms and are becoming more commercial. The only difference is that in the US, there is a greater fear of anything that smacks like socialism, such as, universal education. So in Europe your course is subsidised by tax and in Australia we accumulate a HECS debt. But to keep government expenses down, universities don't get funded fairly (they have to fight with the government which also has to make a business case in funding, and that means money goes to sandstone, not to poorer neighbourhoods, making us more like America every day), so the universities commercialise more and more, and basically, unless research isn't profitable....it isn't funded, and this vicious cycle of students competing with researcher/teachers continues.
Having courses online isn't new! It's just cost effective. But notice how you have to be Stanford enrolled for the certificate to be a Stanford certificate....and I'm guessing to do that you need to pay the $$$. Likewise, you need a massive internet connection to run this course properly. For some people that's not feasible, especially in poorer parts of the world. Yet another blockade on the road where information wants to be free, and scientists would like us to have it that way, too, but can't always do it.

How will this scale to 10k students by naoursla · 2011-08-04 06:05 · Score: 1

Three words: Graduate Teaching Assistants.

Raises questions about university costs by AtlantaSteve · 2011-08-04 06:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

If the content of this class is exactly the same as the "real" version, and at the end you are evaluated on the grading curve right alongside "real" students... then you have to question why the cost of "really" being a Stanford student is $55,385 per year, while the cost of receiving the same product without the formal diploma is $0.

How much of the expense of modern university education today is actually tied to the core product, and how much is simple sociology? That is, only a certain percentage of society can be in the "elite" ranks by definition... and so elite institutions must price themselves accordingly to maintain the appropriate exclusion.

Re:Raises questions about university costs by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 07:07 · Score: 0

As a university professor myself (not at Stanford), I'd just like to point out that I don't need to eat, and neither does any other professor. So it is completely correct to believe that $0 is the true cost of a university education.
Or maybe there's some other explanation? Like the professors are giving away the education as free advertising for themselves and the large corporations that employ them?
Re:Raises questions about university costs by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 07:14 · Score: 0

The course isn't worth $0; the university is just covering the cost, since they have to support the professors. This is good advertising for their university, and a chance to showcase the quality of their faculty.
Re:Raises questions about university costs by AtlantaSteve · 2011-08-04 07:29 · Score: 1

I'm sorry about your bitterness with your career, but your sarcasm misses the point. I do not presume that $55,385 per student per year makes its way into a professor's pocket. Probably only a minuscule fraction of it does (although the amount is no doubt higher for publishing professors at the elite level than it is for those who "merely" teach at the common level). If you're looking for additional cynicism, though... I'm sure the professor is partially motivated by book sales. He wrote the textbook, it costs $100+ a pop, and it will now sell thousands of additional copies since it's required for this class.
Anyway, putting aside the expense of the textbook (which many will pirate anyway)... the cost of the class for the online student is indeed zero dollars. And zero cents. Please don't interpret that as ignorance about the broader economics, or as a self-manufactured slight to your esteem.
Re:Raises questions about university costs by digitalderbs · 2011-08-04 07:46 · Score: 1

First hit's free. Next one's gonna cost you $55,385.
Re:Raises questions about university costs by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 07:59 · Score: 0

I love my career! Being a professor is awesome. But concerning the economics of education, my (large state) university's annual budget is around $1B, which is almost entirely from tuition (and per-student government subsidies, which would be part of the tuition bill if we were private). Professor pay is around 30-40% of the budget. If Stanford is similar, then about $15-20k of the $50k tuition finds its way into some professor's pocket.
They're probably not doing it to sell textbooks. Depending on the contract and the number of authors, they may make $1-2 per copy. Basically, that's beer money, even for a large online class.
Really, the tuition-paying students are subsidizing the costs of the online students. If there were no tuition-paying students, there would either be no course to offer for free, or the course would cost money. Even non-profit online universities (e.g., Athabasca, WGU) charge significant tuition. So again, why are the profs doing this? Probably for the publicity. I record my lectures and throw them up on YouTube for the same reason.
Re:Raises questions about university costs by damiam · 2011-08-04 10:12 · Score: 1

Stanford undergrad tuition is essentially free if your family makes less than $100k/yr. Need-based financial aid policies mean that the $55k number is an upper bound, typically paid in full only by families making $200k and above (with various exceptions, of course, but that's the general pattern). In any case, this is a grad course, so the price of undergrad tuition is not really relevant to the discussion.
Stanford CS PhD students generally have their tuition, as well as an additional stipend for living expenses, fully funded by research grant money, so they don't pay a cent. The only students taking this class who would actually be charged full tuition are likely those in the professional master's degree program, which is basically Stanford's way of siphoning money from Silicon Valley tech companies: the companies send their employees for training and pay Stanford to do it.
This is all to say that I don't think Stanford's trying to rip anyone off here (quite the contrary, since they're providing the course for free). But it's also a rare course which can be taught in this way. It's easy to write an autograder that runs programs submitted to it and checks to see if they produce the correct output; it's much harder to automatically provide feedback on an English paper or a mathematical proof. Similarly, it's easy to record your lectures and put them up on Youtube; it's much harder to replicate a classroom discussion facilitated by a true expert. So, a few large-lecture CS classes aside, the vast majority of classroom experiences (at Stanford or anywhere else) are going to be very difficult to replicate at a web scale, now and for the foreseeable future.

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It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Re:Raises questions about university costs by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 10:25 · Score: 0

Actually the elite U.S. universities don't necessarily cost more than most other private colleges, and in many cases their big endowments allow them to provide more direct financial aid (ie, not charging tuition to families making less than, say, $100,000/year). Where they keep the riff-raff out is by rejecting 90% or more of the applicants (and seeming forbidding enough that most people don't even try to get in in the first place).
Re:Raises questions about university costs by kermidge · 2011-08-04 16:50 · Score: 1

I understand that reading the OP tripped a trigger. In your place, I'd might could feel, and react, the same. The AC is also maybe understandable, given all the Grundies extant.
Before anything else, I gotta say that textbooks have always been over-priced, even allowing for the real costs associated with them. It's a racket, no matter how much the publishers claim that small-market book costs must be borne onto more widespread basic texts. That discussion predates my student days in the mid-Sixties. If the profs do make a buck or two, more power to them. (I'd like to take the course, but I won't be able to save enough for the books by the time class starts.)
(Hmm. Basic econ. Thing is, most of what passes for econ is seriously flawed, IMHO. Classic econ is part of the mechanism whereby we arrived at the recent debt ceiling theatre whilst all kinds nefarious anti-American laws were being passed - warrantless wire taps being but one.)
Real and societal costs, let's see. I attended a megaversity circa mid-Sixties on a Merit funded via the U.S. Army, so all my fellow taxpayers paid for me to go to school. It was a gamble. In my case, they lost. In many others (around 350, at my school,) they gained - a net gain to society. I submit that publicly-funded scholars tend to contribute in larger measure than those never afforded the opportunity. Upon examination, and historically, societies tend to recognize that investment in infrastructure is a good thing over time - and education is the bedrock for all else, not excepting direct personal effort in communal activities, of which education is already a part - known as child rearing. Education - that is, the drawing out, the exposure of minds to things larger, and, in the company of fellows, the potential for synergistic effects, is indispensible to a given society's survival, and is as basic a need and function as agriculture or manufacturing.
For your consideration, if even ten minds of the ten thousand are sparked to eventual accomplishment, then what price the putative loss of one or two students at ~50K/year against the gain? I dunno - you've a valid complaint, if it's borne out, but I'm gonna withhold judgement for now.
Meanwhile, cheers, and keep on truckin.' If you can find but one student a year whose steel rewards your flint, you've earned your wage and done your soul proud as well.
Re:Raises questions about university costs by AtlantaSteve · 2011-08-04 23:10 · Score: 1

In any case, this is a grad course, so the price of undergrad tuition is not really relevant to the discussion ... This is all to say that I don't think Stanford's trying to rip anyone off here (quite the contrary, since they're providing the course for free).

[nitpick] It is in fact an undergrad course. [/nitpick]
Ultimately, I didn't so much intend to comment on the cost of elite-level education as I on the exclusivity of it. If it turns out that there are thousands of "general public" people who outscore the Stanford students on the grading curve... then on some level it would call into question why those students are "Stanford material" and the higher-scoring public members are not. We often presume that the system is a meritocracy, and what I'm basically trying to point out is how this may illustrate that it is not.
Re:Raises questions about university costs by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-05 01:18 · Score: 0

Um.... the same product for free? I'm pretty sure that the students are paying 55k a year for a 4-year degree, not a certificate that they passed one class.
I's not arbitrary where you go. This is one of those things that doesn't make sense in theory, but makes a lot of sense in practice. Going to a college like Stanford, where many students are the direct progeny of the wealthy and powerful, helps a great deal in forging that most essential of human assets: connections. As anyone who has every looked for a job and created a Facebook account will tell you, it's all about your connections. A completely (completely) isolated genius is going to achieve nothing, but a well-connected person of normal intelligence can achieve a great deal. Stanford, Harvard and all those ivy-league schools provide the opportunity to create connections that open up whole new possibilities.
Big, impressive schools also have funding, which works well to attract the best and the brightest faculty, which provides opportunities for students. The faculty have the resources at their command to blaze new trails and to give their students the most cutting-edge information. They don't always (some faculty are content to rest on their laurels), but more than other schools there is the possibility to be right there on the brink - the possibility to discover and present something new to the world. For those with the money, that kind of opportunity alone may be worth the cost.
Re:Raises questions about university costs by damiam · 2011-08-06 05:05 · Score: 1

I had to go recheck the Stanford course numbering system - looks like a 200-level is "advanced undergraduate/beginning graduate". So we're both right.
I agree that people might interpret the grades in the way you say, and that it could be a PR issue for Stanford, but I don't think it would actually be indicative of deep flaws in Stanford admissions (and here I mean undergrad admissions - my understanding is that admissions to the professional masters program mostly consist of "can you breathe, and does your employer have an enormous wad of cash for us?"). The objective function that Stanford is optimizing contains a lot of terms that are not reflected in someone's CS221 performance, so you'd only expect them to be somewhat correlated. Could all of the outside high-scorers also do well in a Stanford English class, do they have anything to contribute to the college community artistically, athletically, or in terms of their background (whether poor black kid from the south or non-native speaker from Japan, most elite schools put a lot of admissions resources into making their campus a mini-melting-pot on the theory that it's good for society and good for their students), and were they taking a bunch of other tough classes at the same time while playing in the orchestra and being involved in a bunch of student groups? (of course many outsiders would have real-world jobs; it would depend on the job and the Stanford student who actually had the tougher time) And of course some of the successful outsiders could be 40yo engineers who went to MIT or wherever back in the day, so it's not as if they're "excluded" from the elite education system.
Basically, I agree that it's possible this could expose that the Stanford admissions filter does not perfectly select for raw CS talent. But I don't think they ever claimed to do that, and I don't think there are many good arguments that they should.

--
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.

Online enrollment is open? Really? by tibit · 2011-08-04 06:40 · Score: 1

TFS says that the online enrollment is open. I couldn't find any way to enroll, only a page where you can enter your name and email to "sign up [...] to receive more information about the online version when it becomes available". Am I missing something? Does anyone have a link to where you can truly enroll for the free version of the course?

--
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.

Re:Online enrollment is open? Really? by daenris · 2011-08-04 06:53 · Score: 1

No, I think the summary/article is referring to exactly that name/email entry form. The page you linked says that "Official registration will open later this summer. Your information will be kept private and only used to contact you once registration is available. "

Re:Possible - Absolutely by TaoPhoenix · 2011-08-04 06:42 · Score: 1

I strongly believe it is possible - it just takes actual funding!

I have cynically remarked that it is a "racial fear" which prevents us from really funding the research it would take to really hit the singularity. That, and our current greed and lust for power playing wargames.

We could have had it by 2012. Taking the famous marker of 9-11, instead of the disastrous failed decade, if we had poured that Trillion into a broad research pyramid, we'd be there. 75 teams of 25 people working for 10 years - yep. Piece of cake. But no, we had more fun invading the wrong countries and groping fliers.

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My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine

Artificial Intelligence Course in college... by Cutting_Crew · 2011-08-04 06:47 · Score: 1

I took an A.I. course in college my senior year and one of the very first assignments we were tackled with was the classical N-Queens problem and different variants of the problem was introduced. Since then I have been intrigued by A.I., specifically in terms of games like starcraft so this will be very helpful.

One thing that i havent looked at closely was that it was noted on one of the links that there were some prerequisites that the students had to meet before taking this course. I'm not sure what those are exactly but i will take a look.

Re:Artificial Intelligence Course in college... by Cutting_Crew · 2011-08-04 07:25 · Score: 1

i found the quote: "PrerequisitesA solid understanding of probability and linear algebra will be required."

Well, it'll sell textbooks for sure... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 06:48 · Score: 1

The text for this book is over $100... I know textbooks are expensive, but for a course that will not lead to college credit? Isn't that a BIT excessive...?

Re:Well, it'll sell textbooks for sure... by Cutting_Crew · 2011-08-04 07:02 · Score: 1

i wonder if the book is absolutely necessary? he said in the video that will go through some chunks of the book but not all of it. how much of a disadvantage would it be to not have it?
Re:Well, it'll sell textbooks for sure... by darkstar949 · 2011-08-04 07:36 · Score: 1

Depends upon how the questions are formatted, if they are asking you to solve questions 1 - 5 on page 100 then you might have some problems but if they spell out exactly what they want then the textbook really shouldn't be required beyond having the relevant information package neatly in front of you.
Re:Well, it'll sell textbooks for sure... by Viewsonic · 2011-08-04 08:18 · Score: 1

Probably dependent on how well you want to pass the course. I am guessing the book itself isn't useless, and that having it would greatly enhance your understanding of the subject. If you're the Chris Knight type of person, you probably don't need the book to pass anything. You just "get" it. Some people are like this, sadly most are not.
Re:Well, it'll sell textbooks for sure... by francium+de+neobie · 2011-08-04 10:20 · Score: 1

Knowledge is valuable. If you don't value the bit of knowledge taught in the course at $100, that's your choice. But I'm sure there're people who think it's well worth it.

Grading homework by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 07:04 · Score: 0

I wonder who will grade the 10.000+ weekly homeworks...

Re:Grading homework by skywire · 2011-08-04 07:30 · Score: 2

The same brilliant AIs that will recognize the worthy questions from students.

--
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

As long as the service doesn't suffer. by pavon · 2011-08-04 07:14 · Score: 1

I know that when I have been in large classes, the added value of taking the class compared to just learning from a book was much lower than with small class sizes. Stanford students may feel cheated if they think that the online portion of this class takes time and attention away from the Stanford class and students.

These guys are the bomb by CAPSLOCK2000 · 2011-08-04 07:19 · Score: 1

If you have any interest in A.I. you should check this out. These two guys are legendary in the A.I. world and they are not even dead! Among AI-studens Norvigs book is referred to as 'the bible'. Thrun did more make self-driving cars a reality than anybody else because he is not just very smart but also very charismatic.

AI course - so excellent by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 07:29 · Score: 0

just signed up - so excited! never done a real online course that matters before, should brush the ol' cobwebs out of my brain!

Fantastic!! :-)

Using my non artificial intelligence... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 07:52 · Score: 0

I've deduced that this is a ploy to sell copies of the "recommended" book. Which just so happens to be written by one of the professors.

Great scam would buy again A+++++++++++++

Credits? by SnarfQuest · 2011-08-04 08:20 · Score: 1

Can you really earn college credits by taking course on Al Gore?

Sounds like a politically oriented school.

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Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.

Conflict of Interest by GeordieMac · 2011-08-04 08:21 · Score: 1

This is a shameless plug for their own book. (required course material) Is this legal? At any rate, if this is the ethical standard exhibited by their professors, then how can I how can I in good faith hire their students?

The power of a reputation by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 08:25 · Score: 0

If this course is anywhere as good as Thrun's book "Probabilistic Robotics"... I'm in.

Go to Amazon. $103.49 for Kindle edition. by Viewsonic · 2011-08-04 08:27 · Score: 1

Yeah. $103.49 for a text file.

Re:Go to Amazon. $103.49 for Kindle edition. by Dan541 · 2011-08-04 10:39 · Score: 1

Perhaps The Pirate Bay has it for less.
http://thepiratebay.org/search/Artificial%20Intelligence:%20A%20Modern%20Approach/0/99/0

--
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Re:Go to Amazon. $103.49 for Kindle edition. by luk3Z · 2011-08-06 21:49 · Score: 0

+ ed2k

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Recipes for USA bankrupt - http://tinypaste.com/0d66f dd = dollar deluge (printed in the infinity)

For a minute there... by BrunoBigfoot · 2011-08-04 09:22 · Score: 1

I thought it said "Intro to Al" and thought it was a music appreciation course for Weird Al. Stupid lowercase letters that look like capitals...

Does this need a lot of CS knowledge? by monstermash161 · 2011-08-04 11:35 · Score: 1

I'd love to take this course but I know next to nothing about CS. I'm good with computers and I learned python and I can do a lot on the command line -- but anybody can do that. Basically, do people think I can float this, or is a lot of background knowledge necessary?

Timed Conditions for Exams? by Kakihara · 2011-08-05 00:37 · Score: 1

Does anyone know whether students have to complete the exams under timed conditions?

--
"Has the rule of law degenerated into the rule of lawyers?" (Niall Ferguson)

Pay for his crime by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-05 15:00 · Score: 0

Sebastian Thrun had deliberately trapped and retaliated on me for sake of a criminal suspect named Gabriele Scheler in Stanford. People behind Thrun had systematically intruded my privacy which had molested many years of my life without an end. Google's Eric Schmidt had threatened my life with a real murder case of Stanford student May Zhou ( http://www.mayzhou.com) for sake of Sebastian Thrun during their fight with Stanford.

Investigation from authorities after my tip confirms that it is people on Eric Schmidt and Sebastian Thrun (Gabriele Scheler as well)'s side who's behind May Zhou's murder case in order to threaten me and to terrorize Stanford. And the power on their side did try to plot a murder on me while I was in California. Before the case could be publicly clarified, neither Thrun nor Schmidt's name is clear in such plotted murder. And so far, they dare not deny such accusations but pretend not seeing while publicly losing their faces.

In the past, Thrun's bosses had tried to get me work with Sebastian Thrun as a settlement of crimes from Thrun's side, but I never compromised a bit, because as I told the investigators, that it is unfair to that innocently murdered girl May Zhou. It's unfair to myself as well, as Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler's side did try to murder me while I was in California; Who wants to work with a professor who's misbehaviors had caused the murder of an innocent student of his own school anyway.

In name of lord, they need to pay for their crimes.

For reference please read Comments Part in
http://read.bi/thrunscase
http://bit.ly/schmidttt
http://read.bi/schmitie
About Gabriele Scheler's crime: http://tysurl.com/mssgYn attention to the photo evidence in the context

Pay for crime by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-05 15:27 · Score: 0

Sebastian Thrun had deliberately trapped and retaliated on me for sake of a criminal suspect named Gabriele Scheler [http://tysurl.com/mssgYn attention to the photo evidence in the context] in Stanford. People behind Thrun had systematically intruded my privacy which had molested many years of my life without an end. Google's Eric Schmidt had threatened my life with a real murder case of Stanford student May Zhou ( http://www.mayzhou.com) for sake of Sebastian Thrun during their fight with Stanford.

Investigation from authorities after my tip confirms that it is people on Eric Schmidt and Sebastian Thrun (Gabriele Scheler as well)'s side who's behind May Zhou's murder case in order to threaten me and to terrorize Stanford. And the power on their side did try to plot a murder on me while I was in California. Before the case could be publicly clarified, neither Thrun nor Schmidt's name is clear in such plotted murder. And so far, they dare not deny such accusations but pretend not seeing while publicly losing their faces.

In the past, Thrun's bosses had tried to get me work with Sebastian Thrun as a settlement of crimes from Thrun's side, but I never compromised a bit, because as I told the investigators, that it is unfair to that innocently murdered girl May Zhou.

It's unfair to myself as well, as Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler's side did try to murder me while I was in California; Who wants to work with a professor who's misbehaviors had caused the murder of an innocent student of his own school anyway.

Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler need to pay for their crimes.

For reference please read Comments Part in
http://read.bi/thrunscase
http://bit.ly/schmidttt
http://read.bi/schmitie

Book Sales by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-06 07:59 · Score: 0

Seems like this could become a good model for making these classes pay for themselves.

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd Edition) = $115 on Amazon x 10,0000 = 1.5 million in book revenue.

Peter Norvig is class teacher and book author.

This one class will probably generate more income for Norvig than the rest of his academic income for this year.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, just saying that this could develop into an interesting model. I realize he probably only gets some small percentage of the revenues, but still better than a kick in the butt.

Just a ruse to sell books by gatkinso · 2011-08-06 10:03 · Score: 1

nothing more.

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I am very small, utmostly microscopic.

Real thing by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-06 10:33 · Score: 0

Sebastian Thrun who was the project leader of this self-driving car project had deliberately trapped me for sake of a criminal suspect named Gabriele Scheler in Stanford. People behind Thrun had systematically intruded my privacy which had molested many years of my life without an end. Google's Eric Schmidt had threatened my life with a real murder case of Stanford student May Zhou (http://www.mayzhou.com) for sake of Sebastian Thrun during their fight with Stanford. ... ...

For more please reference 'http://tysurl.com/OslzkQ

83,000 applicants by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-17 02:12 · Score: 0

Now that there are 83,000 classmates the question is, is the relationship between interesting questions and number of humans linear?

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Stanford 'Intro To AI' Course Offered Free Online

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