By opportunity I don't mean an individual opportunity to get rich. Rather I mean opporunities for humanity to live better.
Sustainability of material progress
Technological opportunities for the future
Assigned readings:
What is AI? - J. McCarthy - for April 3
Elaborating Missionaries and Cannibals - for April 8 Don't worry if you don't understand the mathematical logic in this one.
The Coal Question by William Stanley Jevons, 1865. Stanford has the 1906 edition. The book will be on reserve in the Mathematics and Computer Science Library on the 4th floor of Math Corner, bldg 380. The html version of this 1906 edition of The Coal Question may offer some difficulties in reading.
Read enough to have opinions on (1) what Jevons got right, (2) what he couldn't have gotten right, because of information later than 1865, (3) where he was mistaken even considering the information he had.
Computer Science 22Np1. The goal of this course is to learn about technological opportunities to improve human life via computers and in other ways.
2. Smart computers will be important, but other technological opportunities are also important---taken all together, more important.
3. There will be substantial reading. - About 20-50 pages per week. First reading: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/whatisai.html.
4. The class web page is http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/seminar2003/. Announcements of topics and assignments will be on that page.
5. All written work will take the form of email or web pages in the student's area.
6. There will be 3 to 5 writing assignments. There will be no exams.
7. Grading will be P/NC unless there is a good reason to do otherwise for a particular student.
8. I'm John McCarthy, mccarthy@stanford.edu, jmc@cs.stanford.edu. My
office is 208 Gates, my phones
are
(office: 650 723-4430 voice mail)
(home: 650 857-0672 voice mail)
(cell: 650 224-5804 - most likely to get me)
(fax: 650 725-7411)
My main web page mainly consists of links to my articles on artificial intelligence and other computer science topics. You may like my first try at science fiction, a story entitled The robot and the baby.
Sustainability of Material Progress is a large collection of web pages. You are welcome to read as much as you want, but reading assignments will involve only parts of it.
Opportunities for the (mostly) near future is another collection of pages, only some of which will be assigned reading.
The Coal Question by William Stanley Jevons was written in 1865, and I will put the 1906 edition on reserve in the Computer Science Library. In 1865 England mined half the coal mined in the world, and Jevons considered that this was the basis of English prosperity. He thought that the prosperity could not continue for reasons that he spelled out. 138 years have passed. Some of what Jevons wrote turned out to be right and some wrong. I'll have some questions about Jevons - what he got right and what he got wrong. With a 138 years hindsight, you should be able to see pretty well.
[More readings to come.]
Send comments to mccarthy@stanford.edu. I sometimes make changes suggested in them. - John McCarthy
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