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Stanford Intro to AI course to be taught for free online

by Psy-Kosh
30th Jul 2011
1 min read
39

38

EducationScholarship & LearningAI
Personal Blog

38

Stanford Intro to AI course to be taught for free online
4hankx7787
2XFrequentist
0MixedNuts
0[anonymous]
4MixedNuts
3hankx7787
0[anonymous]
3[anonymous]
0[anonymous]
-2Clippy
3[anonymous]
2Craig_Heldreth
1[anonymous]
0Craig_Heldreth
0[anonymous]
2Craig_Heldreth
0[anonymous]
2[anonymous]
3darius
2XFrequentist
1Psy-Kosh
1Dr_Manhattan
0Psy-Kosh
1Dr_Manhattan
1Psy-Kosh
2[anonymous]
6anonym
6CarlShulman
3Dr_Manhattan
1[anonymous]
6NancyLebovitz
1Psy-Kosh
0[anonymous]
0[anonymous]
0Arandur
0Oscar_Cunningham
0Daniel_Burfoot
0Dr_Manhattan
0calcsam
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[-]hankx778714y40

I will definitely be doing this. Anybody wanna form a study group?

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[-]XFrequentist14y20

Good idea. Are you on Google+?

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[-]MixedNuts14y00

Please let's keep away from social networks.

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[-][anonymous]14y00

Well I suppose other posters wouldn't mind us starting threads related to the class in the discussion section (as long as they aren't about homework). Perhaps even a series of "cool stuff I learned in the class" might be appreciated by some, :)

Also can I just ask why you dislike the idea?

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[-]MixedNuts14y40

Because I don't want to have to either miss the cool content, or to create yet another damn login, defeat a swarm of attempts to invade my privacy, deal with the headache of using my real name, my legal name, or a fake name, and in the first two cases keeping the account of sight of half of my social circle.

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[-]hankx778714y30

this.

I just did a google for "free private chat rooms" and came here:

http://www.chatzy.com/

How about we try that?

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[-][anonymous]14y00

Why not set up a irc channel on free node?

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[-][anonymous]14y30

Good points.

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[-][anonymous]14y00

I am and will be doing the class. Feel free to add me. BTW There here are some other threads about LWers doing stuff on google+.

There is also an AICLASS reddit for it now!

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[-]Clippy14y-20

Yes, I want to.

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[-][anonymous]14y30

Two new classes have sprang up:

  • Intro to Databases
  • Machine Learning

Also is it just me or did the AI class website used to be blue? And didn't the class originally start in September rather than October? Did they change this so it would fall in line with the latter classes?

BTW People taking the other two classes won't be compared to the Stanford students but to other people taking them. I hope it isn't like this in the AI class as well.

Edit: All references in the website to the online students being compared to the Stanford class students have been removed. I guess there where perhaps some complications with how to compare them or Stanford just plain didn't like the idea of a bunch of people with "did better than 95% of a Stanford class" in their CV running around.

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[-]Craig_Heldreth14y20

58 000 sign ups.

Study group?

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[-][anonymous]14y10

People have expressed some interest for this here in this very thread. :)

There is also a reddit for it now.

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[-]Craig_Heldreth14y00

Thank you for posting the reddit link which I had not seen before.

Searching for Konkvistador on google + pulls no matches for me.

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[-][anonymous]14y00

I think I have you added by now and vice verse. I don't use my real name for g+ and googles policy towards pseudonyms is rather harsh, if anyone else wants to add me just PM and I'll send you my contact information.

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[-]Craig_Heldreth14y20

I have signed up and anticipate it eagerly!

Thanks for posting this.

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[-][anonymous]14y00

Same here.

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[-][anonymous]14y20

Thanks for this! This seems very interesting! Anyone else thinking of signing up later this summer?

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[-]darius14y30

Yes, tentatively. I've read the textbook, more like given it a first pass, and it's excellent. This should help me stick to a more systematic study. If the video lectures have no transcripts, that'd suck, though (I'm hard of hearing).

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[-]XFrequentist14y20

I'm in. It may be a stretch of my abilities, but I loooove the idea of competing against Stanford undergraduates.

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[-]Psy-Kosh14y10

I was initially considering it, only apparently it has stronger prerequisites than I thought at first. But will see.

EDIT: On third thought, some people are suggesting the initial CS background requirements may not be as tight, so maybe. Will be reading up on it more, (though possibly may also be busy during the months when the course would be taking place, so not sure)

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[-]Dr_Manhattan14y10

Judging by the book this might be a steep climb but one without sudden dropoffs.

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[-]Psy-Kosh14y00

Mind clarifying? Thanks.

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[-]Dr_Manhattan14y10

The book is very clear, things are not out of order, notation is consistent, and with appendixes the prerequisites are pretty much HS math. So even if the course goes a little fast you should be able to catch up with some extra effort and won't get lost.

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[-]Psy-Kosh14y10

Ah, so it doesn't seem to actually demand much in the way of programming background? (ie, I don't have to start out with a mental catalog of zillions of specialized data structures or anything like that then?)

Awesome, thanks.

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[-][anonymous]14y20

Is this a scam? (I ask only because of the unsavory-looking graphic design.)

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[-]anonym14y60

whois ai-class.com shows Thrun (with his stanford.edu email address) as the registrant and administrative contact, so it seems legit.

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[-]CarlShulman14y60

No, there are fresh videos of Thrun talking about the course and certificate. If it's a scam, it's ripping off a real Stanford AI class taught by Thrun and Norvig.

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[-]Dr_Manhattan14y30

No, for real. Either you have highly refined taste in graphics or they fixed it.

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[-][anonymous]14y10

Ok, cool, then this sounds fantastic.

(No, they haven't fixed it. It just looks wrong to me; the only thing I can put my finger on is too many font sizes. I have very definite instincts about this sort of thing but, sadly, not the vocabulary or the skill to make much use of them.)

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[-]NancyLebovitz14y60

There are additional low-status markers-- cluttered design, big sensationalist photograph, exclamation points. The unifying concept might be "we don't trust that our words are enough to get your attention".

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[-]Psy-Kosh14y10

As far as I know, it's real.

(Note, although it only seems to list knowledge of probability and linear algebra as prerequisites, apparently it does require a bit more than that and that apparently it's the hard version of the course.)

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[-][anonymous]14y00

"Official enrollment is now available!"

I thought I already signed up, do I have to go through this new enrollment?

Yes, the original name and e-mail signup was just to let us know you were interested. In order to participate in the class you must complete the official enrollment.

I've signed up for the advanced track.

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[-][anonymous]14y00

I have easy access to a second edition of Artificial Intelligence, A Modern Approach which is required reading for the AI class, should I still buy the third edition or will this do? Any advice from someone who took the Stanford class?

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[-]Arandur14y00

Well, crap. :/ I'd love to take this, but I'm already going to have a strong enough courseload this semester. I'm not confident that I could keep up.

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[-]Oscar_Cunningham14y00

Awesome. Thank you!

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[-]Daniel_Burfoot14y00

Wow, I never really thought of Thrun as a mad genius before, but now I do.

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[-]Dr_Manhattan14y00

Which aspect of madness of genius are you referring to?

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[-]calcsam14y00

I think a lot of learning comes in the assignments here...I have vivid memories of friends pulling all-nighters every night to finish their assignments for this class.

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Taught by professors Sebastian Thurn and Peter Norvig: http://www.ai-class.com/

I figured some here might be interested. :)

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