We'll see. It does not seem unlikely that, eventually, politicians ill cease upon this. We simply don't trust countries like China and vice versa. There will undoubtedly be limits on what kinds of technology will be shared, which will likely cause problems in the future, probably sooner rather than later.
I have to say, while this sounds undeniably cool, it still does not justify spending as much on a console as one would on a month's rent. As history as shown, the coolest (or "most powerful") console doesn't always win the console wars. So Sony has an online quasi-MMO with cool physics and interaction. Wonderful. It's still $600.
Particularly telling is the statement that "...if these elements are for real, this is the reason to buy PlayStation 3." Generally, people buy game consoles -- especially $600 ones -- because they intend to play a lot of games on it. If people are going to pay this kind of premium for a PS3, it needs a lot more than a cool interface.
As great as buzzwords like "Games 3.0" (or whatever it was) sound to a conference room full of anticipatory people, the question is not "Is this cool?" but "Will this translate into more sales." The Wii has sold over 5 million consoles worldwide, and I still can't find one. The PS3 has sold 2 million. Let me say that again. The PS3 has sold 2 million units. The PS3 sold more than that in the first month. Sony has sold slightly over 700,000 over the cursed things in Japan. That's only about twice as many as there are Xbox 360's in Japan, which is truly sad. There has only been one game in the top 50 of Japanese sales for weeks -- Virtua Fighter 5 -- and it was at something like number 45, last I checked.
(See http://www.vgcharts.org/
Despite all of this negativity, this is a bright spot for Sony. If nothing else, it's something about which those who have already spent $600 on a PS3 (plus peripherals) can feel good. Let's hope, for Sony's sake, that there is more to come.
I agree that this is a bit ridiculous. The commenter who said that there is nothing special about human cognition that is not computable is clearly walking on air, because there is no evidence to support that. That is based on a materialistic assumption of reductionism, and it is simply not that simple. Consider phenomenal properties: the senses of touch, taste, smell, etc. While one can mathematically determine, via particles in the air, whether "this should smell like a rose," that is quite a different thing from experiencing the sensation of the smell of a rose. Likewise, I may shove a piece of chocolate into an orifice of a machine and a very clever program might identify it as "chocolate," and do something like the following:
if(chocolate) {
tastes good }
However, unless that machine experiences, holistically, a first-person perspective of "what it's like" to taste chocolate, then it's just a simulation. It's not a "person" (or whatever).
And as long as we're talking about ethical implications of robots, has no one even considered that, if we are, indeed, going to try to develop sentient robots, then a lot of trial and error is involved, which means, in turn, that a lot of perfectly innocent "robot people" are going to die in the process of arriving at a suitable one, simply because they weren't designed well enough. It sounds a lot like abortion, but, interestingly, some of the same people who advocate "robot rights" would not advocate the same for sentient unborn (or birthing) children. I am not making a statement about the morality of partial birth abortion; I am simply citing what is most likely a ridiculous double standard which illustrates how weird this really is.
I agree, and I also believe that it is impossible to know with materialistic empiricism that anything is sentient. With robots in particular, we could just say (or at least ask whether) it is just imitating sentience extremely well. After all, that is what AI generally is: attempting to imitate us. We don't say that simulating a hurricane in a computer is equivalent to a real hurricane, so why would we say that imitating human behavior in a microprocessor is equivalent to a human?
To take this even further, an AI algorithm can be written on paper. If I go through the algorithm in my mind, am I creating in my mind some kind of second intelligence? I think not.
Of course this is an inherently philosophical question. The fact of the matter is that there is know observational way to know whether a machine is sentient or not. One could always ask, Isn't is just simulating sentience? I do not believe that robots or other machines will ever experience phenomenal properties -- the sensations of taste, touch, smell, fear etc. At best, we will be able to fool ourselves into thinking that it is experiencing those things by making it imitate us very well. A bunch of logic code and clever heuristics do not a sentient being make.
So I think that this is all sort of silly. We are not even close to anything even remotely approaching Strong AI.
I think that it is true that the biggest Windows upgrade was that from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. That, I think, was a huge step forward. Then we got Windows 98. That was a bad sign. We got FAT32 and IE even more entrenched, which quadrupled the memory requirements. Then we got Windows ME. I mean, really, what the hell was that? XP was a huge improvement, I think, and it was the biggest and most meaningful update since 95. For a consumer version of Windows, it is actually relatively stable and usable, as long as you don't get spyware. I eventually bought a 24" iMac, and I couldn't be happier. I still use Windows, but only because I do software development and play some PC games. I'm sure that, after a couple of service packs, Vista will be as stable as XP.
It is worth noting that the original poster did not specific scientific theory; he just said "theory of the origin of life."
In any case, there is still a minority of scientists who subscribe to a view more akin the the Lamarckian model; that is, one which is based on an abstraction of cooperation, rather than competition.
You don't "prove" "evolution." The term "evolution" is much too vague to be "proven," and without a definition of what "proof" means in this case, this is a meaningless statement, and it is certainly not a fact. In Carnap's book, Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, he rightly criticizes the willy-nilly use of the word "fact."
Empirical laws are based on observation. Carnap criticizes scientists for ambiguously using the term "fact." The term "fact," he says, should refer only to a specific event. For example, "I went to a store yesterday" is a fact. By contrast, "mRNA transcribes genetic material" is a scientific law. A law is based upon repeated observation: it is an inference, and a law is used to predict future facts. Empirical laws are statistical laws.
Intelligent design is a philosophical inference. What many fail to realize is that natural selection is likewise a philosophical inference. Natural selection is a model -- a model which usually works quite well. That's why it is a theory. It is an abstraction anthropomorphizes nature: it employs sentient qualities like "selection" to an impersonal environment. (See Lewontin's book, Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA.) Natural selection and intelligent design are by no means mutually exclusive. Naturalism and intelligent design are mutually exclusive, but not natural selection and intelligent design.
True science, I contend, only deals with data. Any inferences made from that data are just that: inferences. We must, I think, distinguish between scientific laws, such as gravity, and scientific theories, such as natural selection. The former is a subset of the latter, but the latter can contain some very shaky things, many of which have little or no support, or are simply convenient models. Natural selection is one example. Nature doesn't "select" things. Nature doesn't have a consciousness (I assume). That doesn't mean it can't be a good model; it's just that I don't even think it's pure science, as much as it is a westernized abstraction based on western economic principles dealing with competition.
I, frankly, believe that thie entire debate concerning "Intelligent Design in Classrooms" is rather ludicrous. It is a biology classroom. If the teacher deems it pedagogically beneficial to discuss the philosophical interpretations of evolutionary theory, then why not let her? Are parents -- or, perhaps, more accurately, politicians -- so worried that their impressionable children are going to be irreparably corrupted by such dangerous ideas that they must be legislated out of the classroom altogether? If these classrooms are like most biology classrooms, the students are merely memorizing terms, in any case. Likewise, if a teacher deems it pedagogically irrelevant to discuss potential philosophical implications in the classroom, then that is his prerogative. I think that the kids deserve more credit for being able to make up their own minds about these things.
What is a "scientific theory"? There are some very interesting denotations available. The fact of the matter is that one side of this debate wants theism to be admissible into scientific discussions; the other wants naturalism to be the de facto standard. Now, I personally think that making any worldview a standard by default is mistaken and arrogant. I do not believe in dispassionately assimilating information, but I also do not like the idea of a teacher shoving a worldview down the throat of a high school student.
This is all about political correctness, and it is nothing new. There is absolutely no reasonable justification for a teacher to be banned from bringing up the philosophical implications of the information being presented. I would argue that one is doing a disservice by omitting this critical part of education. People are so afraid of someone "forcing" a view upon the students that we have taken items for discussion out of educational institutions.
However, if the teacher has the disposition that things like intelligent design are inappropriate for a biology classroom, then that is also the teacher's prerogative. I happen to think that intelligent design is important to discuss, but that is just my opinion. Either there is a designer or there isn't. There are intelligent people who believe both. The only people who believe otherwise are guilty of bigotedly caricaturing people with whom they disagree.
This game now takes the budget crown from Sega's Shenmue and its massive $70 million budget. Of course, back in 1999, it was even more outrageous for a game to cost that much.
Maybe. I'm not sure, though. Firefox, unlike IE, is not bent in encouraging web developers to use the next big thing, with regard to web features. Firefox, along with Opera, as well as a handful of other browsers, have certainly filled a voice for older operating system users who want to access the Internet with support for the latest standards. Opera, after all, is still supported on OS/2 Warp. I think that, by the time Windows 95/98's versions of the browsers become completely obsolete, it won't matter, because almost no one will be using that software anymore, except, perhaps, for a couple of people who still have a useful word processor. One might even argue that, with the preponderance of more varied web browsers and devices with which to access the Internet, things will become more standardized and compatible, so that it won't matter so much. The Wii, DS, PSP, cell phones, PDA's, etc., all tend to have varied web browsers with unequal capabilities. If a web site wants to reach the largest possible audience, perhaps it will forgo technology X and simply provide the service. For the past few years, in any case, Flash has been the differentiator in this regard, as well as some other technologies such as CSS. Even newer technologies, such as JavaServer Faces and the like offer the benefit of a backend renderer into HTML.
Likewise with other OpenSource software: At least it gives us something, and there is always the possibility that someone should will it to an older platform, should the demand aris.
"Imagine working for a company that is tolerated, at best, in many social circles. Imagine being a computer science graduate, going to a class reunion, telling people you work for Microsoft, and watching your former classmates slowly back away as if you'd just told them you had a venereal disease." Hilarious.
Anyway...
I'm not sure that a disagree with the assessment that Microsoft is going into different directions. There at least appears to be a media strategy similar to that for which Sony is hoping. Recently, HD TV shows and movies were available on Xbox Live. The Media Center versions of Windows interact with the Xbox, as well -- and the Zune works with them both. Certainly, Microsoft is diversified, and not all of its businesses overlap. I doubt that the Office team goes the meetings with the Xbox team. However, there does seem to be some semblance of a strategy, even if, like most corporate bureaucracies, many of the peons working there could not care less about the vision of the company.
I don't see how collaborating int his area could possibly be bad. Certainly, it will give Novell/SuSE an advantage, but SuSE has consistently had features that other variations of Linux do not, such as bleeding edge drivers and early NTFS support (before it was common). There is certainly (justified) distrust of Microsoft in the Linux/open source community, especially given some of Steve Balmer's comments.
( http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9005171 )
This is what Spolsky himself, not long ago, argued here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.htm l
Now, the Vista shutdown menu is a very amusing example. So, perhaps the finer point is that complexity can be good, but redundancy isn't(?) Or should we accommodate every single method in which a user might possibly try to execute a task?
*waits for Sony to buy the technology and sit on it*
It will be interesting to see whether or not this develops into something commercially viable. We can't have anything screwing up the perception the blu-ray is "THE FUTURE!" (tm), now can we?
This is disconcerting, if unsurprising.
It definitely strikes me as out of place for the government to require companies to keep certain records, so that, if it wills it, the government can snoop around the personal information of people, as long as it can offer a reasonable cause.
Next, perhaps, new houses will have mandatory monitoring systems, so that if an "appropriately serious" situation arises, someone can see what occurred. This is already occuring with the black boxes inside of cars, which, in no short order, have been abused as absolute evidence for sentencing people to life in prison.
The government exists to enfoce the laws, within reason. Somewhere along the way, we have forgotten this and allowed the government to open Pandora's Box of Orwellian information gathering. Draconian tactics are not necessary for a secure country.
We have to remember that these students are supposedly studying computuer science and not "computer programming," information technology, or some other barely related field.
Computer science is based on mathematics. If someone graduates wih a bachelor's degree in CS and can't write a proof by induction, he doesn't know computer science.
Every computer science student should not basic calculus. It might not come up, but no one in any science, especially a mathematical one, should be ignorant of what a derivative is.
Most important is discrete math or Intro. to Advanced Math/Theorem Proving. Algorithms Design and Analysis could be considered a math course. They have to know asymptotic complexity and write proofs about it, which means that they must have an understand that math behind it. Computer scientists, unlike the life science at the undergraduate level, should not be memorizing a few rules; they shoul be mathematical thinkers. If you can't write a proof of your algorithm's correctness and don't know what an NP-Complete problem is, then something is wrong. If you don't know what O(n log n) means, then buy an algorithms book right now and read it.
Prob/Stat and linear algebra can be useful, but anyone who has taken the aforementioned courses should not how to think and learn on his own by the time he graduates.
For those going to graduate school, they will need all of these and theory of computation. It's all about the proofs in computer science. If schools want to offer degrees in software engineering, then they can omit a lot of the math, but as long as it's computer science, the math needs to be there.
Expert systems have been used for rule-based decision-making for some time. They are particularly good at medical diagnoses. If this is an expert system, with human oversight, there should not be a problem. The ultimate discretion should still be on the part of the judge. We should certainly not use fuzzy algorithms for this kind of thing, and the system should make a recommendation as a benchmark. We should, of course, be weary of delegating any tasks of such severity entirely to machines, as programs contain errors. Particularly if the machine reports the process by which is arrived at its conclusion, the usefulness of such a system is very apparent. After all, a judge should be following the law. A computer program can do that.
"IF X, Y, but not Z, then the law permits sentences A, B, and C."
Or, further, "...the law permits sentences A, B, and C. The following are precedents set in cases in which each of the respective sentences were used."
Slashdot Mirror
Those 200 copies were probably sold to pirates as source copies.
And since we're on the subject of RPG's, let's not forget the incredible graphics in Sega's Panzer Dragoon Saga on the Saturn.
We'll see. It does not seem unlikely that, eventually, politicians ill cease upon this. We simply don't trust countries like China and vice versa. There will undoubtedly be limits on what kinds of technology will be shared, which will likely cause problems in the future, probably sooner rather than later.
Particularly telling is the statement that "...if these elements are for real, this is the reason to buy PlayStation 3." Generally, people buy game consoles -- especially $600 ones -- because they intend to play a lot of games on it. If people are going to pay this kind of premium for a PS3, it needs a lot more than a cool interface.
As great as buzzwords like "Games 3.0" (or whatever it was) sound to a conference room full of anticipatory people, the question is not "Is this cool?" but "Will this translate into more sales." The Wii has sold over 5 million consoles worldwide, and I still can't find one. The PS3 has sold 2 million. Let me say that again. The PS3 has sold 2 million units. The PS3 sold more than that in the first month. Sony has sold slightly over 700,000 over the cursed things in Japan. That's only about twice as many as there are Xbox 360's in Japan, which is truly sad. There has only been one game in the top 50 of Japanese sales for weeks -- Virtua Fighter 5 -- and it was at something like number 45, last I checked.
(See http://www.vgcharts.org/ Despite all of this negativity, this is a bright spot for Sony. If nothing else, it's something about which those who have already spent $600 on a PS3 (plus peripherals) can feel good. Let's hope, for Sony's sake, that there is more to come.
if(chocolate) { tastes good } However, unless that machine experiences, holistically, a first-person perspective of "what it's like" to taste chocolate, then it's just a simulation. It's not a "person" (or whatever).
And as long as we're talking about ethical implications of robots, has no one even considered that, if we are, indeed, going to try to develop sentient robots, then a lot of trial and error is involved, which means, in turn, that a lot of perfectly innocent "robot people" are going to die in the process of arriving at a suitable one, simply because they weren't designed well enough. It sounds a lot like abortion, but, interestingly, some of the same people who advocate "robot rights" would not advocate the same for sentient unborn (or birthing) children. I am not making a statement about the morality of partial birth abortion; I am simply citing what is most likely a ridiculous double standard which illustrates how weird this really is.
I agree, and I also believe that it is impossible to know with materialistic empiricism that anything is sentient. With robots in particular, we could just say (or at least ask whether) it is just imitating sentience extremely well. After all, that is what AI generally is: attempting to imitate us. We don't say that simulating a hurricane in a computer is equivalent to a real hurricane, so why would we say that imitating human behavior in a microprocessor is equivalent to a human? To take this even further, an AI algorithm can be written on paper. If I go through the algorithm in my mind, am I creating in my mind some kind of second intelligence? I think not.
Of course this is an inherently philosophical question. The fact of the matter is that there is know observational way to know whether a machine is sentient or not. One could always ask, Isn't is just simulating sentience? I do not believe that robots or other machines will ever experience phenomenal properties -- the sensations of taste, touch, smell, fear etc. At best, we will be able to fool ourselves into thinking that it is experiencing those things by making it imitate us very well. A bunch of logic code and clever heuristics do not a sentient being make. So I think that this is all sort of silly. We are not even close to anything even remotely approaching Strong AI.
I think that it is true that the biggest Windows upgrade was that from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. That, I think, was a huge step forward. Then we got Windows 98. That was a bad sign. We got FAT32 and IE even more entrenched, which quadrupled the memory requirements. Then we got Windows ME. I mean, really, what the hell was that? XP was a huge improvement, I think, and it was the biggest and most meaningful update since 95. For a consumer version of Windows, it is actually relatively stable and usable, as long as you don't get spyware. I eventually bought a 24" iMac, and I couldn't be happier. I still use Windows, but only because I do software development and play some PC games. I'm sure that, after a couple of service packs, Vista will be as stable as XP.
It is worth noting that the original poster did not specific scientific theory; he just said "theory of the origin of life." In any case, there is still a minority of scientists who subscribe to a view more akin the the Lamarckian model; that is, one which is based on an abstraction of cooperation, rather than competition.
You don't "prove" "evolution." The term "evolution" is much too vague to be "proven," and without a definition of what "proof" means in this case, this is a meaningless statement, and it is certainly not a fact. In Carnap's book, Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, he rightly criticizes the willy-nilly use of the word "fact." Empirical laws are based on observation. Carnap criticizes scientists for ambiguously using the term "fact." The term "fact," he says, should refer only to a specific event. For example, "I went to a store yesterday" is a fact. By contrast, "mRNA transcribes genetic material" is a scientific law. A law is based upon repeated observation: it is an inference, and a law is used to predict future facts. Empirical laws are statistical laws.
Intelligent design is a philosophical inference. What many fail to realize is that natural selection is likewise a philosophical inference. Natural selection is a model -- a model which usually works quite well. That's why it is a theory. It is an abstraction anthropomorphizes nature: it employs sentient qualities like "selection" to an impersonal environment. (See Lewontin's book, Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA.) Natural selection and intelligent design are by no means mutually exclusive. Naturalism and intelligent design are mutually exclusive, but not natural selection and intelligent design. True science, I contend, only deals with data. Any inferences made from that data are just that: inferences. We must, I think, distinguish between scientific laws, such as gravity, and scientific theories, such as natural selection. The former is a subset of the latter, but the latter can contain some very shaky things, many of which have little or no support, or are simply convenient models. Natural selection is one example. Nature doesn't "select" things. Nature doesn't have a consciousness (I assume). That doesn't mean it can't be a good model; it's just that I don't even think it's pure science, as much as it is a westernized abstraction based on western economic principles dealing with competition.
While I agree with you in principle, there are, in fact, many theories of the origin of life; there is one mainstream theory of the origin of life.
I, frankly, believe that thie entire debate concerning "Intelligent Design in Classrooms" is rather ludicrous. It is a biology classroom. If the teacher deems it pedagogically beneficial to discuss the philosophical interpretations of evolutionary theory, then why not let her? Are parents -- or, perhaps, more accurately, politicians -- so worried that their impressionable children are going to be irreparably corrupted by such dangerous ideas that they must be legislated out of the classroom altogether? If these classrooms are like most biology classrooms, the students are merely memorizing terms, in any case. Likewise, if a teacher deems it pedagogically irrelevant to discuss potential philosophical implications in the classroom, then that is his prerogative. I think that the kids deserve more credit for being able to make up their own minds about these things. What is a "scientific theory"? There are some very interesting denotations available. The fact of the matter is that one side of this debate wants theism to be admissible into scientific discussions; the other wants naturalism to be the de facto standard. Now, I personally think that making any worldview a standard by default is mistaken and arrogant. I do not believe in dispassionately assimilating information, but I also do not like the idea of a teacher shoving a worldview down the throat of a high school student. This is all about political correctness, and it is nothing new. There is absolutely no reasonable justification for a teacher to be banned from bringing up the philosophical implications of the information being presented. I would argue that one is doing a disservice by omitting this critical part of education. People are so afraid of someone "forcing" a view upon the students that we have taken items for discussion out of educational institutions. However, if the teacher has the disposition that things like intelligent design are inappropriate for a biology classroom, then that is also the teacher's prerogative. I happen to think that intelligent design is important to discuss, but that is just my opinion. Either there is a designer or there isn't. There are intelligent people who believe both. The only people who believe otherwise are guilty of bigotedly caricaturing people with whom they disagree.
That's interesting. There is conflicting information with regard to this, as I believe Sega originally claimed it to be $70 million. See http://www.gamespot.com/dreamcast/adventure/shenmu e/review.html
This game now takes the budget crown from Sega's Shenmue and its massive $70 million budget. Of course, back in 1999, it was even more outrageous for a game to cost that much.
Maybe. I'm not sure, though. Firefox, unlike IE, is not bent in encouraging web developers to use the next big thing, with regard to web features. Firefox, along with Opera, as well as a handful of other browsers, have certainly filled a voice for older operating system users who want to access the Internet with support for the latest standards. Opera, after all, is still supported on OS/2 Warp. I think that, by the time Windows 95/98's versions of the browsers become completely obsolete, it won't matter, because almost no one will be using that software anymore, except, perhaps, for a couple of people who still have a useful word processor. One might even argue that, with the preponderance of more varied web browsers and devices with which to access the Internet, things will become more standardized and compatible, so that it won't matter so much. The Wii, DS, PSP, cell phones, PDA's, etc., all tend to have varied web browsers with unequal capabilities. If a web site wants to reach the largest possible audience, perhaps it will forgo technology X and simply provide the service. For the past few years, in any case, Flash has been the differentiator in this regard, as well as some other technologies such as CSS. Even newer technologies, such as JavaServer Faces and the like offer the benefit of a backend renderer into HTML. Likewise with other OpenSource software: At least it gives us something, and there is always the possibility that someone should will it to an older platform, should the demand aris.
"Imagine working for a company that is tolerated, at best, in many social circles. Imagine being a computer science graduate, going to a class reunion, telling people you work for Microsoft, and watching your former classmates slowly back away as if you'd just told them you had a venereal disease." Hilarious. Anyway... I'm not sure that a disagree with the assessment that Microsoft is going into different directions. There at least appears to be a media strategy similar to that for which Sony is hoping. Recently, HD TV shows and movies were available on Xbox Live. The Media Center versions of Windows interact with the Xbox, as well -- and the Zune works with them both. Certainly, Microsoft is diversified, and not all of its businesses overlap. I doubt that the Office team goes the meetings with the Xbox team. However, there does seem to be some semblance of a strategy, even if, like most corporate bureaucracies, many of the peons working there could not care less about the vision of the company.
I don't see how collaborating int his area could possibly be bad. Certainly, it will give Novell/SuSE an advantage, but SuSE has consistently had features that other variations of Linux do not, such as bleeding edge drivers and early NTFS support (before it was common). There is certainly (justified) distrust of Microsoft in the Linux/open source community, especially given some of Steve Balmer's comments. ( http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9005171 )
This is what Spolsky himself, not long ago, argued here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.htm l
Now, the Vista shutdown menu is a very amusing example. So, perhaps the finer point is that complexity can be good, but redundancy isn't(?) Or should we accommodate every single method in which a user might possibly try to execute a task?
*waits for Sony to buy the technology and sit on it*
It will be interesting to see whether or not this develops into something commercially viable. We can't have anything screwing up the perception the blu-ray is "THE FUTURE!" (tm), now can we?
This is disconcerting, if unsurprising. It definitely strikes me as out of place for the government to require companies to keep certain records, so that, if it wills it, the government can snoop around the personal information of people, as long as it can offer a reasonable cause. Next, perhaps, new houses will have mandatory monitoring systems, so that if an "appropriately serious" situation arises, someone can see what occurred. This is already occuring with the black boxes inside of cars, which, in no short order, have been abused as absolute evidence for sentencing people to life in prison. The government exists to enfoce the laws, within reason. Somewhere along the way, we have forgotten this and allowed the government to open Pandora's Box of Orwellian information gathering. Draconian tactics are not necessary for a secure country.
No kidding. I am somewhat disturbed when I hear of degrees in "computer science" without discrete mathematics.
We have to remember that these students are supposedly studying computuer science and not "computer programming," information technology, or some other barely related field. Computer science is based on mathematics. If someone graduates wih a bachelor's degree in CS and can't write a proof by induction, he doesn't know computer science. Every computer science student should not basic calculus. It might not come up, but no one in any science, especially a mathematical one, should be ignorant of what a derivative is. Most important is discrete math or Intro. to Advanced Math/Theorem Proving. Algorithms Design and Analysis could be considered a math course. They have to know asymptotic complexity and write proofs about it, which means that they must have an understand that math behind it. Computer scientists, unlike the life science at the undergraduate level, should not be memorizing a few rules; they shoul be mathematical thinkers. If you can't write a proof of your algorithm's correctness and don't know what an NP-Complete problem is, then something is wrong. If you don't know what O(n log n) means, then buy an algorithms book right now and read it. Prob/Stat and linear algebra can be useful, but anyone who has taken the aforementioned courses should not how to think and learn on his own by the time he graduates. For those going to graduate school, they will need all of these and theory of computation. It's all about the proofs in computer science. If schools want to offer degrees in software engineering, then they can omit a lot of the math, but as long as it's computer science, the math needs to be there.
Expert systems have been used for rule-based decision-making for some time. They are particularly good at medical diagnoses. If this is an expert system, with human oversight, there should not be a problem. The ultimate discretion should still be on the part of the judge. We should certainly not use fuzzy algorithms for this kind of thing, and the system should make a recommendation as a benchmark. We should, of course, be weary of delegating any tasks of such severity entirely to machines, as programs contain errors. Particularly if the machine reports the process by which is arrived at its conclusion, the usefulness of such a system is very apparent. After all, a judge should be following the law. A computer program can do that. "IF X, Y, but not Z, then the law permits sentences A, B, and C." Or, further, "...the law permits sentences A, B, and C. The following are precedents set in cases in which each of the respective sentences were used."