| May 9 |
And your last paper assignment.
Also: readings. Please read both the Soskis piece (it touches on a number
of things we've discussed this semester, ranging from the Turing Test to
Kismet the robot, with the purpose of thinking about at what point
computers might justifiably be given rights under the law) and the
Kurzweil piece (which is a short response to the Bill Joy article with
which we started the semester). No need to read the Warren article.\
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|---|---|
| Apr 29 |
Here is a guide to "The Extended Mind."
Also, a change of readings for next week: I want us to talk about
connectionism, so please read the first 3 sections (about 23 short pages)
of this
paper, and also the article about "Growing a Brain in Swtzerland"
linked below.
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| Apr 20 |
For Tuesday, in addition to the reading I assigned in the syllabus, please
take a look at a couple more things about Brooks's work (I promise
they're cool and worth it.) First, a collection of pages about Kismet, the
robot with the expressive face, here.
(Click on "Overview" on the top left to start, and definitely watch some
of the videos -- though you may not be able to on campus...). Also, please
read this
short piece entitled "Humanoid Robots: A New Kind of Tool."
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| Apr 17 |
Astonishingly, I have a paper assignment for you, when I told you I'd have
it. It's here. Let me know if you have
questions.
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| Apr 12 |
Here's a guide to the Dennett
reading.
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| Mar 29 |
A student just brought this very relevant article to my attention: Growing
a Brain in Switzerland.
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| Mar 26 |
Here's a guide to the readings for
tomorrow.
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| Mar 20 |
Shoot; I wrote up a guide for today's reading but forgot to link it. Here.
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| Mar 13 |
Here
is the link to that oldish article about the Loebner Prize.
Also, in relation to our discussion today about consciousness, perception,
and limited perceptual capacity, you might enjoy the sci-fi short story
"The Secret Sense," written by Isaac Asimov in 1939. A
not-very-well-formatted version is available here
(you'll then need to click a link to download a PDF file) [Oops -- that
link is dead now.]
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| Mar 10 |
Here is a reading guide for the Donath
piece.
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| Mar 6 |
Paper 1 has been assigned, due March 20.
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| Mar 3 |
And the guide to the piece on the Turing
Test.
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| Feb 26 |
If you're struggling with the readings, you might find some of the advice
in this
piece helpful.
|
Feb 24 |
Turing uses the phrase "human computer" a couple times. This
article has a nice (detailed!) treatment of what that term means (or
would have meant to Turing). Here is the reading guide for the Turing article.
After you read the Turing paper, for (just a little bit of) extra
credit, check out the book How We Became Post-Human by N. Katherine
Hayles (call number Q335 .H394 1999). Read the Prologue (barely 4
pages long) and write a 1-page reaction paper, due in class on Tuesday.
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| Feb 16 |
I've posted a guide for the Minsky
essay, and one for the Chalmers
paper.
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| Feb 9 |
Here is a wee reading guide for the
Davis article. If you haven't read the article yet, please take 10-15
minutes before you read it to write about your own definition of
intelligence
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| Feb 1 |
For most of the readings this semster I'll post "reading guides" that will
at least give a few questions to have in mind while reading. In general,
you shouldn't hesitate to look up things that are unfamiliar to you
(especially since there is a such a diversity of backgrounds in this
class), and you should always be cognizant of your right to disagree with
the author -- though you should be very clear about on what basis your
disagreement rests.
With that, please enjoy the first guide,
to the Bill Joy article.
And here is a guide for the Luger
article.
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| Jan 31 | Welcome to CIS 10. Mostly, I'll
post documents related to the course here (paper assignments, review
sheets, as well as relevant links). You might be interested in the syllabus first...
|