Stanford open “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” class

Stanford open AI Class 09/26-12/16

Stanford has been offering portions of its robotics coursework online for a few years now, but professors Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig are kicking things up a notch (okay, lots of notches) with next semester’s CS221: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. For the first time, you can take this course, along with several hundred Stanford undergrads, without having to fill out an application, pay tuition, or live in a dorm.

This is more than just downloading materials and following along with a live stream; you’re actually going to have to do all the same work as the Stanford students. There’s a book you’ll need to get. There will be at least 10 hours per week of studying, along with weekly graded homework assignments. The professors will be available to answer your questions. You can look forward to a midterm exam and final exam. If you survive, you’ll get a certificate of completion from the instructors, along with a final grade that you can compare to the grades of all those supersmart kids at Stanford.

You won’t technically earn credits for the course unless you’re a Stanford student, but for all practical purposes, you’ll be getting the exact same knowledge and experience — transmitted directly to you by none other than two living Jedis of modern AI. Thrun, director of the Stanford AI Lab, led the team that won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, and, more recently, he helped develop the Google self-driving car. Norvig, a former scientist at Sun and NASA, is now director of research at Google and co-author of the leading textbook on AI.

Here’s how it will all work: Anyone can sign up for the course online. It starts on October 2nd and lasts 10 weeks. Each 75 minute lecture (there are two per week) gets videotaped and chopped up into 15 minute chunks that you can stream whenever you want, and homework, quizzes, and exams are all digitized and completed over the internet. Professor Thrun gave us a few more details:

Grading will be automated. But we are recording video specifically to help students who got the answers wrong. We will use the exact same questions for everyone, including the Stanford students. In this way we can actually compare how well everyone is doing.

We will use something akin to Google Moderator to make sure Peter and I answer the most pressing questions. Our hypothesis is that even in a class of 10,000, there will only be a fixed number of really interesting questions (like 15 per week). There exist tools to find them.

As of yesterday, which is only the third day that the course has been available, over 10,000 students are already signed up, and since enrollment is open until September 10th, it’s entirely possible that a couple hundred thousand people could end up taking this course. Sounds daunting, but professor Thrun is optimistic about the whole thing:

I am very excited. Teaching many students online has always been my dream. This quarter I get to affect more students than in my entire career before. And yes, we are already beyond my expectations, just 3 days in.

You can sign up for yourself at the link below, and keep up to date through the class Twitter feed here.

[ Introduction to Artificial Intelligence ]

Will you enroll???

Mr Khakbaz signing up and checking out!!!

Credit goes to http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/you-you-can-take-stanfords-intro-to-ai-course-next-quarter-for-free

A story of bad English

Un mexicano estaba en una esquina queriendo cruzar la calle en una ciudad de Estados Unidos, del otro lado un matrimonio que también la querían cruzar.

En eso pasa un carro muy rápido y con la llanta pisó una piedra. La piedra saltó y le pegó al marido en la cabeza. El señor se desmayó y la señora histérica trataba de despertarlo sin éxito…

En eso llegó la policía y como el Mexicano había sido testigo de los eventos, el oficial lo abordó y le preguntó:

¿Did you see what happened here?

“Yes”, contestó.

¿Name? Dijo el policía, sacando al mismo tiempo una libreta para apuntar el nombre. Y contestó el hombre (que aprendió inglés con un Diccionario):

“Almost-can-see Fountains Pigeon-houses”…. (Casimiro Fuentes Palomares.)

El oficial se quedó moviendo la cabeza como pensando, ¿Qué dijo este pendejo?.

¿How was it? Preguntó de nuevo el policía.

Y el señor contestó:

“I was stop here” (Yo estaba parado ahí.)

Y siguió el señor….

“The car came made the mother”. (El carro venia hecho la madre.)

“The wheel gave a mega-gay to the stone”. (La llanta le dió un putazo a la piedra.)

“The stone flew with mother” (La piedra voló con madre.)

“And hit the man in the one hundred” (Y le pegó al señor en la sien.)

“The woman put the kitchen helper shout in the heaven” (La mujer puso el pinche grito en el cielo.)

“And the woman said: Old, old, old… do not suck” (Viejo, Viejo, Viejo… no mames!)

“Up, Up. Don`t whistle yourself big goat” (Levántate, levántate. No te chifles cabron!)

“And the bull never came back in yes again” (Y el wey nunca volvió en sí otra vez.)

Todo destanteado el policía le preguntó: And, ¿Where is the car?

Y contestó el señor:”It peel rooster!” ( peló gallo!)

Wandering NYC

Friday, final day in NYC (flying out at noon on Saturday) so I got to make the most out of this day. After a long Thursday night drinking and watching the Mavs-Heat game I slept until 9:30; as soon as the alarm woke me up I was off to the races to do everything I wanted to do.

At 10:15 I’m out of the room and hopping onto line A up to 59th street. Boy it is hot and humid, I’d say it’s around 90 degrees and 50-60% humidity. A quick 7 minute trip and I get to my first destination, the Apple Store at 5th avenue; as a geek this place was like heaven to me. Just from the outside the place is beautiful, check out the pic

The big cube is just the outside, right in the middle you get to the stairs down to the store. Inside you can find any thing Apple, from all Macbooks, iMacs, iPods, iPads and a ton of docks for playing digital music. The place is just awesome, yet I could not find the iPad cover/case I was looking for (odd that I didn’t find it at the Apple Store yet I found one at a Brookstone in the Newark Airport next day). After Geek Paradise it was off to next door to FAO Schwarz.

If you’ve seen Home Alone this is the toy store they base Duncan’s Toy Chest on, FAO Schwarz has any toy you could imagine. You find the Harry Potter section, the action figure section, this huge piano you can dance on and the keys will light up (you can take it home for the nice price of $250,000 dollars)

Also you have this huge Lego section with some sculptures made entirely of lego such as a Indiana Jones and this Statue of Liberty

Got a gift for her and also for my Godson, a little Red Sox puff and a Cars 2 toy for each one.

Right across the street from both store is the SE corner of Central Park, so it’s time to walk like crazy in this beautiful place. Need I remind you by now it must be over 95 degrees and humid as hell so to say I was sweating is an understatement. Walked all around the park but the place I really wanted to hit was Strawberry Fields -a small section of the park dedicated to John Lennon-, if you read my blog you now I’m a big Beatles fan so this was a must. Why the place is modest it just has this great aura and was so worth the long ass walk.

Just a nice place to visit; this is up around 72nd street, so I’m about 13 blocks off the subway stop I need to take back down to Times Square. By now it’s almost 1 PM so I’m starving, on the way down I decide the eatery of choice will be the Hard Rock Cafe on 44th, smack dab in the heart of Times Square. A house salad, Baby Back Ribs and a couple of Sam Adams later I got my tank filled up so it’s off to wander around a bit more.

The next stop is the Hershey’s Store a couple of blocks away to get some chocolates for her and for the office. Just the smell of the place is off the hook, chocolate all around. They’ve got these great boxes with a Times Square image and has an assortment of miniature chocolates.

Souvenir shopping, gotta get some things for friends and a final gift for her. A quick walk down on 7th to 36th to get to the World’s Largest Store, Macy’s to get some clothes. To say the store is huge is an understatement, it must be 8 or 10 floors high; I got a new wallet on the street level, two shirts on the second floor, a pair of shoes and two pants on the 4th. It’s around 5:30 and I’m sweaty and dead tired, time to hit the hotel to rest a little and shower before the show at 8.

After the pitstop it’s time to head up to Radio City Music Hall to watch the second show ever of Cirque De Soleil’s Zarkana. Had a couple of drinks before the show, those 15 dollar scotch & soda’s were pretty darn good.

I’ve always wanted to see a show at Radio City so this was a great opportunity, the show was OK but in no way was it better than that O show I saw in Vegas in April or The Beatles: Love. Also the fact that it was the second show ever show with lots of production quirks that need to be worked out. Not the best show I’ve seen, actually the worst of the 3 I caught this trip (Rain: tribute to the Beatles and Stomp were the other 3) but was pretty entertaining.

10:30 PM and a quick subway trip takes me back to the hotel. My legs are dead, I’m hungry and I need to get my bags packed for the trip back home. Got a couple of pizza slices which were great; NYC has got to have the best pizza around, maybe I’ve got to go to Chicago to see if the theory is right. Dined, packed and off to sleep. Long trip back home tomorrow, for now…

Mr Khakbaz out!!!