B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum • Hacker News Board

Re: B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum

#61

Post by dagw » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 8:57 AM UTC

leowoo91 wrote: post #39

danielmorozoff wrote: post #23

I'm a bit concerned that this will be too superficial and not really cover ML or the mathematical foundations well. ML and 'AI' are very multifaceted fields that require a strong foundation in mathematics. As such, the lack of information theory, signal processing, fourier analysis, abstract algebra (from a mathematical standpoint) not to mention CS courses is disheartening. This seems like a major tailored to the st…

Just wondering how signal processing knowledge would help?

Occasionally the input data you want to learn from might be a signal of some kind the might need cleaning/filtering/transforming before you can get the best possible result.

Re: B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum

#62

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:05 AM UTC

daef wrote: post #54

teekert wrote: post #42

Ok, is it me? I first though it was a joke (Bull Shit in A.I.), looks like it's not, it is a degree? Don't they mean B.Sc. in A.I. then? What does B.S. stand for? (other than Bull Shit of course.)

I thought about asking the same question, but disregarded it as - meh - it's just me anyway...

It's not just you. I chuckled when I saw the title.

Re: B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum

#63

Post by laughingman2 » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:19 AM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #55

abhisuri97 wrote: post #7

Yay for an ethics component! Albeit, I have a strong feeling it'll be treated as a (for lack of a better term) BS class since the audience this caters to isn't necessarily those interested in academia but are more likely to do this track b/c it'll be more beneficial for jobs.

I miss they don’t have Ethical Mars Colonization class in astronomy courses. Why are we not preparing students for something that we expect to happen at least 50 years down the line?

They don't teach Ethics in AI for skynet scenario, but for analyzing ethics in real use cases like Automated targeting in military applications, manipulating people, biases in AI models etc

Re: B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum

#64

Post by doppp » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:55 AM UTC

The discussion posted here 4 months ago is worth a look: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17040368

Re: B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum

#65

Post by tomxor » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 10:13 AM UTC

szilardboy wrote: post #33

rland wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's got quite a bit of university debt, so it's just working on the whole intelligence explosion thing on weekends and evenings (when it's not driving for Uber)

Eventually it decides the singularity is a young man's game, and moves out of Silicon Valley to work at as an IT consultant in Portland.

Then again for a robot, living in silicon valley is a perfect fit... they only need a cupboard, no bathroom or working kitchen.

Re: B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum

#66

Post by hestefisk » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 10:14 AM UTC

Disappointed to not see any philosophy of science subjects in here, whilst it is really the cornerstone of “thinking about AI”. Yes ethics is highly relevant, but I think it is more important for AI / ML practitioners to be able to reason about the foundations, methodology, and limitations of AI from the perspective of human knowing, what constitutes intelligence, scientific reductionism etc. I suppose US schools are more focused on the first order skills (how to do it) instead of second order (what and why). There are huge philosophical implications of the rise of AI outside of “just ethics”, which we don’t teach students enough. Knowledge vs information vs data, auto- vs allopoiesis, the structure of scientific revolutions, different forms of consciousness etc. In short, programmers and data scientists need to spend more time thinking about thinking when they are at school!

Re: B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum

#67

Post by alan_wade » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 10:16 AM UTC

iheartstartup wrote: post #46

danielmorozoff wrote: post #23

I'm a bit concerned that this will be too superficial and not really cover ML or the mathematical foundations well. ML and 'AI' are very multifaceted fields that require a strong foundation in mathematics. As such, the lack of information theory, signal processing, fourier analysis, abstract algebra (from a mathematical standpoint) not to mention CS courses is disheartening. This seems like a major tailored to the st…

There's quite a bit of misinformation in this comment. - Tensorflow has very little use for the mathematical concept of a "Tensor", apart from the fact that it is a multidimensional array as a way of organizing data. - Again, most of what is covered in an Information theory class is coding theory, which is not directly applicable to ML. There are a few superficial connections, however, nothing enough to justify a who…

Thank you for this comment!

It's like every second post on AI/ML tries to convince everyone how difficult it is and how you need 16 years and 3 PhD's to even approach the level of mastery that they have of this subject.

While may or may not be true - definitely not helpful for a student aspiring to learn this stuff.

Re: B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum

#68

Post by atgreen » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 10:16 AM UTC

This can't be new, is it? I graduated with a BSc in Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Toronto almost 30 years ago. I still have my varsity jacket with an "AI" shoulder patch.

Re: B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum

#69

Post by fahdelm » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 10:34 AM UTC

iheartstartup wrote: post #46

danielmorozoff wrote: post #23

I'm a bit concerned that this will be too superficial and not really cover ML or the mathematical foundations well. ML and 'AI' are very multifaceted fields that require a strong foundation in mathematics. As such, the lack of information theory, signal processing, fourier analysis, abstract algebra (from a mathematical standpoint) not to mention CS courses is disheartening. This seems like a major tailored to the st…

There's quite a bit of misinformation in this comment. - Tensorflow has very little use for the mathematical concept of a "Tensor", apart from the fact that it is a multidimensional array as a way of organizing data. - Again, most of what is covered in an Information theory class is coding theory, which is not directly applicable to ML. There are a few superficial connections, however, nothing enough to justify a who…

Thank you !

Re: B.S. In Artificial Intelligence – Curriculum

#70

Post by roymurdock » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 10:34 AM UTC

hestefisk wrote: post #66

Disappointed to not see any philosophy of science subjects in here, whilst it is really the cornerstone of “thinking about AI”. Yes ethics is highly relevant, but I think it is more important for AI / ML practitioners to be able to reason about the foundations, methodology, and limitations of AI from the perspective of human knowing, what constitutes intelligence, scientific reductionism etc. I suppose US schools are…

Show me a system that can even come close to approximating “thinking” and remembering/synthesizing info on any of the deeper levels you discussed and I’ll agree. We need to improve the actual technology first before we shape it in an ethical or philosophical way. Otherwise AI will continue to be ever more fine tuned linear regressions from camera feeds stacked and trained into “smart” neural networks.