NSC 110 Deans Scholars Seminar

Mirrors on Ourselves 
Elaine Rich
Spring, 2008

Schedule of Topics and Reading Assignments

January 16        Introduction

 

January 23        The idea crosses many cultures

·        “Technological Models of Mind – Lieh Tzu” (handout)

·        “Legend: Durga Puja and Navratri” (handout)

·        “The Birth of Ganesha”, (handout)

·        “The Golem: A Jewish Legend” (handout)

The most famous of the early automata, The Turk

 

January 30        The legacy of The Turk

·        Moxon’s Master”, Ambrose Bierce (handout)

Turing’s Test and his prediction

·        “Can Machines Think?”, Alan Turing (handout)

·        AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence: Chapter 5, pp. 132 – 139.

 

February 6       Discussion of Turing’s paper

The early legends lead to The Pygmalion legend

·        “Pygmalion” (handout)

·        “The Perfect Painting” (handout)

Computation

·        AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence: Chapter 1.

·        Moore’s Law”

 

February 13     A (somewhat) modern story

·        “The Nightingale”, Hans Christian Anderson (handout)

Computation, continued

How much computing does it take?

·        Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, Chapter 3.

 

February 20     Another (somewhat modern story)

·        Drowne’s Wooden Image”, Nathaniel Hawthorne (handout)

Computation, continued

·        AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence: Chapter 4.

 

February 27     Another (somewhat modern story) A video

·        “The Sandman”, E. T. A. Hoffman (handout)

Computing, continued

·        AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence: Chapter 6.

 

March 5           Computing, continued

                        Artificial Intelligence

·        AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence: Chapter 10, pp. 237-243.

·        “Marvin Minsky on Common Sense and Computers That Emote” (handout)

·        Push Singh, “The Open Mind Common Sense Project” (handout)

 

March 12         SPRING BREAK

 

March 19         Artificial Intelligence and Common Sense

·        Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, Chapters 1 and 2.

 

March 26         Robots

·        Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, Chapter 4.

 

April 2              The line between us and them

·        Exegesis

Language

 

April 9              What makes us us?

·        The Third Chimpanzee: Chapters 1 - 5 and the Introduction to Part III

 

April 16            Art and music

·        The Third Chimpanzee: Chapter 9

 

April 23            Should we do it?

·        The Day the Earth Stood Still

·        Short Circuit

·        Marshall Brain, “Robotic Nation”

·        Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, Chapter 5.

·        Bill Joy, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”

·        Freeman Dyson, “The Future Needs Us”

 

April 30            Should we do it?

·        I, Robot

·        Ray Kurzweil, “Are We Spiritual Machines?” (handout)