Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Learn About Game Theory and AI?

xmojox writes "I would like to learn more about Artificial Intelligence and Game Theory. I know these are both large areas of study; however, my main interest is in how these affect decisions in the world. This would include politicians, business people, and general society. I'm not looking for a career or anything; this is just a personal interest of mine. Where are good places to start in these areas for somebody new to them? I'm aware of the Stanford on-line classes, but those don't work with my current schedule."

Comments

How do they not work??

[SuperKendall]

I'm aware of the Stanford on-line classes, but those don't work with my current schedule

Why? You can just watch the videos instead of doing the homework, or watch them sometime later and do the homework then.

But if you really had any interest you would be shifting around everything else, including sleep, to take fullest advantage of these classes in real time.

Re:How do they not work??

[elsurexiste]

Why? You can just watch the videos instead of doing the homework, or watch them sometime later and do the homework then.

Maybe xmojox isn't around a PC for hours, because of his/her job, and spend a few more hours commuting. Maybe he/she has no tablet that's easily carried. We are not to judge. If we don't believe what's telling us, we may as well think this question is just an attempt at trollling and stop wasting our times.

But if you really had any interest you would be shifting around everything else, including sleep, to take fullest advantage of these classes in real time.

Worst. Advice. Ever. If you don't sleep at least six hours, you'll notice. It isn't sustainable.

On topic: Check Wikipedia's page for Game Theory and go to the citations. There you'll find a few books and other resources you can read.

You might try Economics instead.

[meburke]

Not to belittle your choices, but this is a VERY complicated subject. My favorite introductions to game theory are, "The Compleat Strategyst" by Williams, and, "Strategy in Poker, Business and War" by McDonald. These are not trivial books, but they are easy reads into the uses of Game Theory.

After that, you get into some Math. Read anything you can on Probability and Risk; know your Statistics and Calculus. Much of what you are looking for will be found under the subject "Decision Theory."

I say study Economics because this is where political and economic scientific thought is making the greatest gains at this time. Game theory has a lot to do with "payoff" and Economics is a fertile field for studying payoffs. (So is Political Science, and there some good laboratories in, say, Afghanistan, Mexico and Chicago. But that's a slightly different, pragmatic, field of study.)

My favorite definition of "politics" is: "The behavior of vying for scarce rewards." This is almost exactly a definition for Economics. At one time Economics was thought to be a sub-level of politics; it now seems the opposite is true.

Hayak pretty much proved that economic behavior cannot be quantified because of the complexity. What is useful is deriving principles of actions under a variety of conditions to provide maximum payoffs, for the most people, under the widest variety of conditions. (An alternative course is to try to derive the largest payoffs for the fewest people under specific conditions.) AutoDesk used to have an Artificial Life laboratory that you could manipulate to learn about Genetic Algorithms and other AI behavior. Context-dependent AI can be learned through developing Neural Nets. Some of the guys I've talked to at Carnegie Mellon in the Quantitative Economics studies have warring economic artificial hybrid GA/Neural Nets, and the observations are pretty interesting.

If it was simply a matter of rational decision making, optimum economic strategies could probably be described and tested in a much smaller AI field. However, politics and economics are burdened with mis-perceptions, human values, and stubborn beliefs. This is a big field, and you should be able to enjoy it as a hobby for the rest of your life without running into a limit of learning.

Consciousness

[Smallpond]

I haven't seen anyone post it yet, but if your interest is in human-like intelligence, read an AI critic like Searle.