111–115 of 115 posts
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Granted it wouldn't work in many other classes, but my teacher for assembly language did something like this. First, your code had to work or you got nothing. You also had some time limit, to avoid ridiculously slow, yet working code. Finally, each working submission was graded by the number of additional bytes you used above the reference implementation. And he knew all the tricks. I don't think anyone ever beat him…
Lasher at NCSU?
On the other hand, it was inevitable that as long as "grades" or equivalent are officially certified (even though the course is not for degree credit), that people would collect online courses as credentials. Wherever there's signaling value, there will be cheaters faking the signal.
Disclaimer: I got the email and missed two homework questions.
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It's a sad story. I wonder if this changed from 2005 to now. Would you get hired now? Seems like machine learning / big data / some of ai is a hot topic now.
Yes, I believe that the situation has changed since 2005. For the evidence, this thread is the strongest I know. Yes, I know that Google, Microsoft, etc. should be using AI for ad targeting, search ranking, scam and fraud detection, etc. Maybe they are. Still from the tech news it does appear that the best way to get paid for such work from such companies is to do a startup with such work and then just sell your comp…
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I can't comment on online courses, but in general there is a HUGE difference between people who get As and people who get 100% on every single assignment. Never making a single error is an amazing feat. I personally have only scored straight-100%s in a single course (Python programming), and that was only because I was relatively an expert in the material before the course began.
If you are getting 100's on everything it means you are gaming the spirit of the learning, overfitting the memory. Plop that guy in front of a computer with specs and a deadline and you will learn why grades are not an indicator of success.
Well, the only two people I personally know who would get all 100s are Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun, and I personally wouldn't mind hiring them!
Of course, in reality, Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun are working on projects that have long time horizons, e.g. self-driving cars and search. So perhaps you're still correct: The people you would hire to bang out code to meet a short deadline are probably different from the people you would want to work on your long-term technology bets.
In general, I disagree that knowing a topic incredibly well is necessarily overfitting. Deep knowledge can only aid new insights. You often hear about mathematicians and physicists who think by inhabiting their own mental world, composed of insights that they hold so deeply that they are _intuitive_.
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It is surprising that you thought of this as a "cool AI job offer". I have two remarks here. First, the email sent to the class is barely an invitation to send resumes. Something many programmers/CS Students with online presence experience on a regular basis. Probably not from a Stanford Professor but at least from major companies recruiters. It would be interesting to know how many will actually make it through the…
"It is surprising that you thought of this as a "cool AI job offer"." I don't. That part of the post was written with tongue firmly attached to cheek. If that tone didn't come through, that means I have to improve my writing. The online ML course is CS 229A (which is also an actual course at Stanford. The online version is close to the Stanford course). The "tough" version is CS 229 (no 'A' at the end). I registered…
A bit of me died when I heard prof. Ng say that. However, I had committed to finishing ml-class and I did. As of now, I'm glad I went through with it. I felt like I was learning all these cool AI techniques that I hadn't heard about. However, the proof is in the pudding. The question is will I be able to take a real world problem and apply what I learned in that class to come up with something interesting? If I can't you are probably right. My perfect record would only be worth the paper it's printed on and the money I paid for the course!
I'm not pointing fingers at Prof. Ng. or anyone here. It was an experiment for Stanford and an experiment for me. I know I am looking forward to the courses next year :).