Dr. Robert K. Moniot

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CISC 4660 L01 -- Minds, Machines & Society
Spring, 2011

• Syllabus (HTML) (PDF)
• Assignments. Detailed descriptions of assignments will be posted here as they are assigned.
• Schedule of student presentations
• Some practical tips on public speaking (PDF)
• A rubric giving what I am looking for in a presentation (PDF)

Breaking news:

Check out the story on IBM's Jeopardy-playing computer.

Update: Here are some links to commentary on this development:

• Wall Street Journal, "Can a Computer Win on 'Jeopardy'?" February 5, 2011.
• Commentary about Watson by your instructor, published on MercatorNet, a web site carrying commentary on current events.
• David Gelernter (author of Mirror Worlds), in the Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2011.
• Herbert Gelernter (David's father) in Forbes Magazine, June 22, 2009.

External links:

Links to Web materials related to class topics.

• “Poker Bots Invade Online Gambling,” article in the New York Times, March 13, 2011. Computer programs that play poker “can rival good players, but not the best — yet.”
• "Mind vs. Machine," by Brian Christian, in Atlantic Monthly, March, 2011. The author was a human contestant in the Loebner prize contest of 2009 and has thoughtful and insightful comments on the goal of computer intelligence.
  Update: this story has now appeared as a book, The Most Human Human, Doubleday, 2011.
• "Toward computers that fit on a pen tip." Researchers have developed some millimeter-scale computers, a step further on the way to nanobots.