A.I.

A.I. stands for Artificial Intelligence and it relates to the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it.

AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success.

The field was founded on the claim that human intelligence can be so precisely described that it can be simulated by a machine. This of course raises philosophical issues about the nature of the mind and the ethics of creating artificial beings, issues which have been addressed by myth, fiction and philosophy since the beginning of times.

Applications of AI are already used in video games, speech recognition programs, expert system such as the MYCIN that was created in 1974 which diagnosed bacterial infections of the blood and suggested treatments. It generally did better than medical students or practicing doctors though, of course, its limitations were observed. Namely,its ontology included bacteria, symptoms and treatments and did not include patients, doctors, hospitals, death, recovery and events occurring in time.
Its interactions depended on a single patient being considered. Since the experts consulted by the knowledge engineers knew about patients, doctors, death, recovery, etc... it is clear that the knowledge engineers forced what the experts told them into a predetermined framework. In the present state of AI, this has to be true. The usefulness of current expert systems depends on their users having common sense.

Answers on AI basic questions are answered here on Stanford University website.

And it's exactly Stanford University that just a few days ago, announced that they were offering a free online course on Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and all of a sudden the university found itself submerged with 74,200 requests on enrollment!

"The vision is to change the world by bringing education to places that can't be reached today" one of the main lecturers said.

And how will the AI instructors grade so many students? They claim the use of extensive technologies including Google moderator service and different was to personalise exams to minimise cheating.

I personally find it amazing that such a subject as this could be opened up to everyone without any limits. Age of the applicants varies between people just come out of high school to retired.
Besides being an incredibly interesting course to take, the potential of such method is massive. Imagine smaller institutions being able to implement their courses by joining efforts with great institutions such as Stanford...

I don't know about you but I have already asked my dad to take the course with me... He will certainly come in handy with the maths and logic side of it... me? I'll be the expert clown making studying light-hearted!!!