bobgian@psuvax.UUCP (01/02/84)
************************************************************************* * * * An Experiment in Teaching, an Experiment in AI * * Spring Term Artificial Intelligence Seminar Announcement * * * ************************************************************************* This Spring term Penn State inaugurates a new experimental course: "THE HUMAN CONDITION: PROBLEMS AND CREATIVE SOLUTIONS". This course explores all that makes the human condition so joyous and delightful: learning, creative expression, art, music, inspiration, consciousness, awareness, insight, sensation, planning, action, community. Where others study these DESCRIPTIVELY, we will do so CONSTRUCTIVELY. We will gain familiarity by direct human experience and by building artificial entities which manifest these wonders!! We will formulate and study models of the human condition -- an organism of bounded rationality confronting a bewilderingly complex environment. The human organism must fend for survival, but it is aided by some marvelous mechanisms: perception (vision, hearing), cognition (understanding, learning, language), and expression (motor skill, music, art). We can view these respectively as the input, processing, and output of symbolic information. These mechanisms somehow encode all that is uniquely human in our experience -- or do they?? Are these mechanisms universal among ALL sentient beings, be they built from doped silicon or neural jelly? Are these mechanisms really NECESSARY and SUFFICIENT for sentience? Not content with armchair philosophizing, we will push these models toward the concreteness needed for physical implementation. We will build the tools that will help us to understand and use the necessary representations and processes, and we will use these tools to explore the space of possible realizations of "artificial sentience". This will be no ordinary course. For one thing, it has no teacher. The course will consist of a group of highly energetic individuals engaged in seeking the secrets of life, motivated solely by the joy of the search itself. I will function as a "resource person" to the extent my background allows, but the real responsibility for the success of the expedition rests upon ALL of its members. My role is that of "encounter group facilitator": I jab when things lag. I provide a sheltered environment where the shy can "come out" without fear. I manipulate and connive to keep the discussions going at a fever pitch. I pick and poke, question and debunk, defend and propose, all to incite people to THINK and to EXPRESS. Several people who can't be at Penn State this Spring told me they wish they could participate -- so: I propose opening this course to the entire world, via the miracles of modern networks! We have arranged a local mailing list for sharing discussions, source-code, class-session summaries, and general flammage (with the chaff surely will be SOME wheat). I'm aware of three fora for sharing this: USENET's net.ai, Ken Laws' AIList, and MIT's SELF-ORG mailing list. PLEASE MAIL ME YOUR REACTIONS to using these resources: would YOU like to participate? would it be a productive use of the phone lines? would it be more appropriate to go to /dev/null? The goals of this course are deliberately ambitious. I seek participants who are DRIVEN to partake in this journey -- the best, brightest, most imaginative and highly motivated people the world has to offer. Course starts Monday, January 16. If response is positive, I'll post the network arrangements about that time. This course is dedicated to the proposition that the best way to secure for ourselves the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is reverence for all that makes the human condition beautiful, and the best way to build that reverence is the scientific study and construction of the marvels that make us truly human. -- Bob Giansiracusa (Dept of Computer Science, Penn State Univ, 814-865-9507) Arpa: bobgian%psuvax1.bitnet@Berkeley Bitnet: bobgian@PSUVAX1.BITNET CSnet: bobgian@penn-state.csnet UUCP: allegra!psuvax!bobgian USnail: 333 Whitmore Lab, Penn State Univ, University Park, PA 16802