Free Stanford Artificial Intelligence Class Draws 70K Students
Unprecedented demand makes professors 'absolutely ecstatic'.
Photos
Videos
A free online course at Stanford on artificial intelligence has attracted more than 70,000 students from around the world.
The class, taught by professors Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig, will offer an introduction to artificial intelligence and offer the same materials and testing as the offline course.
“Many years ago, when I was a young student in Germany, there were no classes on artificial intelligence that I could take, and understanding the field was really difficult,” said Professor Thrun in a video posted Sunday.
Thrun helped develop Google's driverless car after leading the development of Stanley, an autonomous car that won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge.
Norvig, who is Director of Research at Google, led the computational sciences division of NASA and authored the textbook Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach.
“We have been absolutely ecstatic about the many many of you who are up to take this challenging class,” said Thrun.
The class is one of three being offered free by Stanford Computer Science this fall, and has already attracted high school students and retirees, according to the New York Times.
“If you haven’t already done so, sign up now, and get ready for a deep and fascinating journey into the field of AI,” said Thrun.
PeterCao
2:44 pm on Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Sebastian Thrun's boss in Stanford Computer Science department would do anything extreme to cover up Thrun's crimes; e.g. a distinguished Emeritus Stanford Computer Science Professor, Professor Ed Feigenbaum, had started the fashion for sake of Thrun to crash my gmail and hotmail accounts [Stanford police told me that's crime], and found all of my innocent friends accordingly and mobbed them to deceive me, condemn me, threaten me in mafia manners, which had molested many years of my life without an end.
I'd ask one question: Would anyone, especially those from Stanford Computer Science Department, be able to step forward at this moment and responsibily say that Sebastian Thrun is innocent in May Zhou's murder case, and that their plotted murder on me had nothing to do with Sebastian Thrun, as well?
Doesn't anyone of them feel guilty to cover up Thrun's role in such murder cases, which had taken away an innocent Stanford student's life and which had seriously endangered my life, by boosting Thrun's popularity? Is that the way Stanford Computer Sicence Department want to protect one of their criminal professors? Would anyone of them be willing to substitute Thrun to face legal consequences of his crimes?