classes at UFPE
Apr. 29th, 2003 01:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guslToday I saw half of the first Information Theory lecture at the EE department. It was progressing at a good pace, but I had to leave halfway through because it conflicts with AI.
Then I went to the math department to see what classes they are offering. I'll probably attend one out of "Topics in Combinatorics", "Commutative Algebra", "Graphs and Algorithms". It may be too late to sign up properly, but I don't care too much.
AI was very entertaining again. Jacques surreptitiously gave us a survey of AI, from historical and methodological perspectives (including a nice cybernetics-like diagram of the concept of an agent), cognitive science, connectionist vs logical, only to ask, at the end of the class "but what IS intelligence?".
"Who is more intelligent: Ronaldo or Kasparov? A lawyer or a one-year-old? A doctor or a maid?"
Well, Kasparov was beaten by a computer in 1997, but soccer players as good as Ronaldo may not be built for another 50 years.
If the task is learning a language from scratch in a 10 year period, the one-year-old will do a better job than the lawyer.
Afterwards, I asked him for some professional advice, and he gave me what seemed like good feedback.
I also told him about my theoretical interests, and he said he has some kind of software project where a language needs to be developed, but his student doesn't have the kind of profile it takes to work out a formal semantics, so I may have a concrete project to work in.
Then I went to the math department to see what classes they are offering. I'll probably attend one out of "Topics in Combinatorics", "Commutative Algebra", "Graphs and Algorithms". It may be too late to sign up properly, but I don't care too much.
AI was very entertaining again. Jacques surreptitiously gave us a survey of AI, from historical and methodological perspectives (including a nice cybernetics-like diagram of the concept of an agent), cognitive science, connectionist vs logical, only to ask, at the end of the class "but what IS intelligence?".
"Who is more intelligent: Ronaldo or Kasparov? A lawyer or a one-year-old? A doctor or a maid?"
Well, Kasparov was beaten by a computer in 1997, but soccer players as good as Ronaldo may not be built for another 50 years.
If the task is learning a language from scratch in a 10 year period, the one-year-old will do a better job than the lawyer.
Afterwards, I asked him for some professional advice, and he gave me what seemed like good feedback.
I also told him about my theoretical interests, and he said he has some kind of software project where a language needs to be developed, but his student doesn't have the kind of profile it takes to work out a formal semantics, so I may have a concrete project to work in.