From: "Bill Howell. Hussar. Alberta. Canada" <>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2018 09:28:37 -0700
To: "Chase Holt. Care Representative. CCI Wireless. Calgary. Alberta"
Cc:
Thanks for the "unlimited data" clarification, Chase.
Right now, my purpose is to learn more about current MOOC systems by doing something [interesting, simple, short time commitment]. Course content isn't important, but the [function, mathematics, programming of humans] behind MOOC is. Not to build a system or to use it, just to get a feeling of its status and how radically it may change very soon.
Having said that, in a weird sense of timing, I have been "keeping part of an eye" on a Chinese system, KEEP, involving a friend, Irwin King, who is now Director or something of the Engineering faculty of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Irwin's been hitting me over the head for several years about the Chinese government's interest in MOOC, but it's always hard to believe much of what a government or academic scientist says. Irwin's one of the good scientists - open minded, very energetic, enthusiastic, and fun! (Sings karaoke better than me, but that's not saying much).
05/10/18 04:27 AM I saw mention of a Dinosaur MOOC in the KEEP <> newsletter of "Award-nominated Dinosaur Course Rerunning This Month" (see https://keep.edu.hk/articles/596), instructed by well-known and I think retired Phil Currie of Alberta. I am a public member of the Tyrell Museum, so I looked at their programs (Tyrell has expanded to do more educational programs, and their "Tyrell Talks" by scientists 11:00 on Thursdays in the winter are excellent!), and emailed the Education manager (or something), but I got no response from him.
Mon, 15 Oct 2018 17:03:24 -0400 (EDT) I got a "Promoting KEEP' email from the International Neural Network Society (INNS) <> (I'm a longtime member, as well of IEEE-CIS), BUT not written by INNS President Irwin King (yeah, same guy), but by my boss for IJCNN2019, Chrisina Jayne (General Chair, awesome [worker, leader, scientist]!) :
Dear INNS Member,This is more the type of course I should be looking at, and I may. Take a close look at the list of topics - it's really weird that the current "hot topic, fashion-of-the-day" Deep Learning Neural Networks, isn't in the list!! Our INNS Society has top scientists in that area, but we missed the current hype cycle whereas competing societies and the rest of the world capitalized very well on it. But my research projects don't look at "old" stuff, I'm more interested in what doesn't exist, and what is wrong with essentially all the great science of the mainstream (science fashions -> cults -> religions).
KEEP is a one-stop platform which enables access to educational resources, data, analytics, courseware, and tools.
KEEP now contains a specially curated set of courses for the INNS members which provides links to over 60 courses in
• Machine Learning
• Big Data
• Neural Network
• Neural Physiology
• Neural Anatomy
• Cognitive Science
• Neuroscience
You can find information about these courses on https://course.keep.edu.hk/curated/inns. These select courses offer an abundance of high-quality learning resources and interactive content.
Kind regards,
Chrisina Jayne
While its good to raise general awareness of advances, I dislike almost of the current hype, and I'm disgusted with smart men who make themselves look like asses (eg [Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Mori-something (quantum expert)] with their yapping that misleads everyone. I'm also disgusted but not surprised by the "this is evil and we must stop it" automatic reaction by the media and scientists. Not that it matters -> 50 to 75% of the papers in the [INNS Neural Networks, IEEE-CIS TNNLS] journals, and especially papers in [very tough, complex leading edge mathematics], are Communist Chinese (including expats). With Western attitudes, we may not have much influence on the future. I frequently ask Canadian high school kids what their [interests, aspirations, mathematics backgrounds] are. I wonder if we'll have much of a role in the economies of the future, other than as "hewers of wood, and drawers of water".
What really bugs me, is that after the "neural network winter" (~1967 Minsky&Pappert paper to ~1986 NN renaissance), where the AI guys shit all over Computational Intelligence (CI ~ [Evolutionary Computation, Neural Networks, Fuzzy Systems]), everything is now called "AI", even by our experts. Perhaps it's just easier to use a well-known term, but it does lead to massive funding mis-allocations on pretenders. The public also thereby misses one of my [points, perspectives] on the different approaches to imputing intelligence to machines :
- Artificial Intelligence (AI, an old god was Marvin
Minsky, also tech advisor to Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space
Odyssey) - tried [rational, logical, scientific] reasoning as a
basis of intelligence. Expert Systems, Case-based reasoning,
and Kasparov-vs-IBM_Deep_Blue were the pinnacle. But frankly,
this approach has proven to be exceptionally limited and
costly. Hybridization with CI techniques may change that soon.
- Computational Intelligence (CI - lesser-known gods) -
uses what I describe as non-[rational, logical, scientific]
reasoning as a basis of intelligence. Biologically-inspired
algorithms, complexity, and Google_Deep_Mind_Alpha_Go-vs-?Korean
9th Dan world's best Go player? are current status, with a long
way to go with CI (many generations of researchers). By the
way, Alpha Go confirmed what NN friends had told me : "Go is to
Chess, as Chess is to Tic-Tac-Toe". Chess is a dummies game
(I'm lousy at chess and have never really played it, so not much
hope for me). Biology is where the big ideas come from, and a
niche interest of mine, neuro-evolution (Risto Mikkalainenn
?spelling?) is starting to redefine our understanding of what
evolution might really man, and clarifying how it might actually
work, at least to the next level.
Of course, classical Boolean logic, math, algorithms] are the main work in real systems at least at present, with [AI, CI, other] built on top and providing what can't be done conventionally.
In reality - I'm too busy in retirement to do much work on my own projects!!
Mr. Bill Howell
1-587-707-2027 www.BillHowell.ca
P.O. Box 299, Hussar, Alberta, T0J1S0
member - International Neural Network Society (INNS), IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (IEEE-CIS),
Association of Professional Engineers and Geo-scientists of Alberta (APEGA)
IJCNN2019 Budapest, Publications and Sponsors & Exhibits Chair, https://www.ijcnn.org/organizing-committee
WCCI2018 Rio de Janeiro : Publicity committee, mass emails http://www.ecomp.poli.br/~wcci2018/committees/
Retired: Science Research Manager (SE-REM-01) at Natural Resources Canada, CanmetMINING, Ottawa
-------- Forwarded Message --------
| Subject: | RE: Bill Howell 46755 |
|---|---|
| Date: | Fri, 9 Nov 2018 15:04:04 +0000 |
| From: | Chase Holt <> |
| To: | Bill Howell. Hussar. Alberta. Canada <> |
Morning
Bill
How
was the Expo? The usage is unlimited, meaning you can
stream and utilize any and ALL MOOC’s all day everyday.
What are you taking?
Thank
you
|
|
|