About Stanford’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
1. Is this site part of the Stanford course Introduction to AI?
 NO, is the short answer. Yet at the same time yes it's related. This course seeks to explore cultural dynamics created by 135,000 people all trying to do something new together as well as explore how intriguingly many topics in AI are interrelated to concepts in culture and art.
2. Do you have information on about the Introduction to AI at Stanford?
Yes, since I’m taking the course myself I can give you some info
The official site is here
The current syllabus here
The best way to get updates it to follow their twitter feed @aiclass
The text book both physical and e-book is here
The reddit study group is here
The link-in group here
Math and other rerequists? The course site indicates you should be familiar with both statistics and linear algebra. Most people seem to be reviewing both at Kahn Academy personally I love the MIT lectures by Professor Gilbert Strang for linear algebra.
Computer Language? If you aren’t familiar with a particular programming language they recommend Python which is free and open source.
 3. Are you affiliated with Standford or with Professors Norvig and Thrun?Â
No and given the number of student I doubt that they will even ever know this project exists. I’m human enough to wish otherwise. Since they need to concentrate on a huge job of managing the world largest class ever, I ‘m philosophical about my anonymity. But I have sent Both Prof. Norvig and Prof. Thrun open letter by email and the text is here. UPDATE: Both Prof. Norvig and Prof. Thurn read my email and sent me nice short replies. There is a link now to this project in the Introduction to AI class website here.
About Introduction to Artistic Intelligence.
 1. So what is Introduction to Artistic Intelligence then?
 It is an art class you can take and at the same time an art project you can join. You can think or use it as one or the other or both. If you want to be technical, it is a new-media long-duration collaborative performance artwork.
2. What is a new-media long-duration collaborative performance artwork?
Let's break it down. The project is an new-media artwork because we are using a new-media ( the internet) as the medium. It is long duration because a college semester is a long duration of time, compared to say an single evening. It is collaborative because we as a group will be actively making this together. All those element are pretty self-explaintory. It is trying to define performance art that becomes tricky. To quote from wikipedia "Performance art is an essentially contested concept: any single definition of it implies the recognition of rival uses. As concepts like "democracy" or "art", it implies productive disagreement with itself.[1]Â
Again from wikipedia "In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or via media; the performer can be present or absent. It can be any situation that involves four basic elements: time, space, the performer's body, or presence in a medium, and a relationship between performer and audience. Performance art can happen anywhere, in any venue or setting and for any length of time. The actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time constitute the work." This extremely loose definition seems to leave out nothing yet somehow for me leaves out what is the most important about performance art - that it is loose collections of tools to turn our actions into signs.
1^ Carlson, Marvin (1998 (first 1996)). Performance: A Critical Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 1,2. ISBN 0-415-13703-9.
3. What is Introduction to Artistic Intelligence, not?
It is not a study group for Stanford’s Introduction to AI. Although you might be able to image it was a big study lounge where everyone can to talk about how the course effects their life rather than trade study problems. It’s not a Luddite rant against technology. There are other forums where one can do that nicely. It is not a pom pom pep rally to science either. I expect like everything in the arts, AI will get critiqued from most every angle but that’s hardly the same thing.
3. How will it work?
Each week of the course on Sunday there will be a video lecture. Every week will also have one one or two short course assignments due Monday. The assignments are not time-consuming but intended so the ideas presented can be put in practice immediately.  For the mid-term each person will collaborate on collective artworks  similar to an exquisite corpse. Each person will work on the overall global artwork for the course final. Course participants will upload their assignments on to the website for optional private or public display (your choice). Anyone in participating group can comment and discuss the artworks created. WORK WILL NOT BE COMMENTED ON BY THE PUBLIC.
At the end of the course there will be an internet-based exhibition as well as an exhibition at a physical site in Lavardin, France.
 4. How do I join?
Just register. You will receive an email with more details as we approach the first day of the project OCT 16, 2011.
5. Why are you making Introduction to Artistic Intelligence at all?
One of the magical qualities of the artist's life is that everything you are interested can become part of the work. I started out in college interested in computer and robots. Although I spent my adult life as an artist, I have never lost the interest. I am old enough now to be intimidated by the chance of academic failure against a planet full of young-bloods fresh from school. When I think of the experience as a piece of performative art that I can share, it changes everything. That's the heart of performance art, it is real yet changes that reality. That is what makes it exciting. Because performance art is real not fiction, there is always a possibility of humiliating highly public academic scores. Yet failure? Failure is only if you don’t finish….. It changes the ball game. I think there may be others among the 130,000 other students who might feel the same.  Time will tell.
Will it be offered in January? or will it be offered again in the future?
Sorry but this is a time-specific new-media long-duration collaborative performance artwork (see FAQ for explanation. I would really like to participate contact via the contact page and see if you can become part of our merry band
I only now heard about this project, and don’t have time to join/catch up. If you decide to embark on a follow-up project (or even something new involving AI/ML and Art), I’d be interested in hearing about it.
Ditto here, only just discovered thanks to it’s promotion on ai-class.org.
Sorry, we were on the links page since before the class began, but today our project got a little extra promo….
Let a few questions:
1. My God! The classes will be available on Sunday and have only until Monday to answer the assigments? You do not consider this a very short time? If possible, would be great if this time were extended to at least one week, in order to reconcile it with our other activities.
2. There will be some kind of certificate to participants? If so, they will be issued by an institution?
3. The instructional videos will be captioned? If this is not planned, it would be possible for you to provide English subtitles for them? This would greatly help students who are not of English speaking countries.
Thank you!
1. The reason for the short time period is to get you to do the assignments IMMEDIATELY. They won’t take long, if you focus. The first week lecture will be a bit longer but afterwards the lectures will be quite short (no more than 15 minutes but QUITE concentrated). Because of this, the week one assignment is extra short. The arts are more focused on practice than lecture so I prefer you send your time creating rather than listening to the shiny box. I think you will prefer it too.
2. There will not be a certificate. However there will be an exhibition of the project both online and in a gallery space in Febuary which I think is much better for a creative project. Everyone who completes the project will have equal billing on the promotional materials and at the opening which will be streamed on the web if you can’t make it to the gallery space.
3. I think captioning is a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion and I will try to do so for the later classes but I not sure if there is time for the first class. I will try
When you do the online class will I be able to watch it when I want to within a certain time frame? or will I have to watch it while it is live while you are doing it?
The videos will go online each Sunday starting next Sunday the 16th. You can watch them anytime but since the short assignments are due Monday midnight the ideas is you have about 48hours to watch them if you are actively taking the class.
so what time is class starting on the 10th of October.
would prefer if you would mention in Sri lankan time.
Hi, The Stanford AI class begins on the 10th of October but our Introduction to Artistic Intelligence actually starts on Sunday, 16 at 9:00 Paris time (GMT +2). Since you are in Sri lanka which is GMT +5.5. The first lecture should be online after 12:30 your time on Sunday. You can watch the lecture and do the short exercises anytime the following 36 hours period to give people in all time zones equal opportunity. Then new video lectures will come out each Sunday at 9:00 Paris Time. I will spend each Sunday and Monday looking and commenting on everyone’s work. lol
I would love to put in a widget to convert between time zones but there is a iframe malware hack that is going around right now so I am hesitating to put a time zone converter directly on the site. you can see the time conversion to all time zones here http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Introduction+to+Artistic+Intelligence+-Lecture+1&iso=20111016T09&p1=1283&sort=2
Ok – you’re not affiliated w/ the Stanford AI course. Who are you affiliated with? What is behind putting this on (other than the “cute” synergy between the initials of the Stanford offering).
In other words, who are you, what are your credentials, and why should I participate?
Okay Yarko the answer is kinda long but since you asked…
First thanks for asking me at all. I really hope you decide to join this project because questioning and searching are at the heart of the constellation of mental and perceptual skills that I believe constitute “artistic intelligence.” Questioning is also something no one person can lay claim to controlling or to certifying, but is a human birthright. Most of early socialization, no matter what the culture, is designed to discourage real questioning. Since you have retained that natural human skill so many people have had beaten out of them, I think you could add enormously to the project.
No, I am not officially affiliated with the AI course other than the both professors are have expressed interest in my ideas and put a link on the class website to my art project. I am an artist and to quote from the late Stephen Wilson’s artist statement
Those sentiments hold true for myself as well. One reason to participate is that as an artist I have an independent voice (by the way – you have that same independent voice too – at least potentially). Some artists, great and otherwise, teach at various institutions . Many are my personal friends. That’s great and gives them a more steady paycheck even if it means slightly less independence. Many are great artists too, but that can only be seen/understood in their output – their artwork. Any artist who tries to convince you of the merit of their artwork by credential – whose moral and intellectual force doesn’t stem from the work’s ideas and it’s execution is just BSing you whatever their paper credentials.
This is an artwork, an art project if you will, not a traditional “class.” If the title, Introduction to Artistic Intelligence, suggests to you otherwise it is because there is an inherent paradox in “artistic intelligence.” Artistic intelligence can not be explained – only experienced directly. No one can teach “artistic intelligence.” All one can do create situations in which that intelligence can be experienced. The only aspect of ‘artistic intelligence’ that can be taught is that the special cycle of feelings and conflict internally generated by the process of creative work are predictable and normal. This art project seeks to give anyone who wishes to participate a chance to experience directly that creative cycle from beginning to completion.
Although art school explicitly teaches useful skills and techniques which vary both by school by culture by era and by speciality (painting, sculpture, installation, design, etc…). Art school also implicitly teaches by repetition, by example, and by personal encouragement of its instructors how to cope and channel the energy and conflict in the creative cycle. What I hope to do with Introduction to Artistic Intelligence is make that understanding of the creative cycle explicit and direct. My secondary goal is create a chain of experiences for each participant so that the connections between the Artificial and the Artistic are much deeper and clearer than just “cute” logos or the latin root ars of each word. Those underlying connections must, like “artistic intelligence” itself, be understood directly. Your chain of connections could be very different from my own or those other people involved. In working together as an extremely large creative team, we will discover which of those linkages are personal and idiosyncratic vs which are more general and universal.
I am an artist and have been for the last 25 years. If I had to pick one word to describe what I do, I would say I am always a sculptor because I am always trying to create spaces. Some spaces are physical, some virtual, and some of those spaces are mental. With Introduction to Artistic Intelligence I am also trying to create a space for hundreds of other voices besides my own – including yours.
I believe every artwork is the result of an experiment whose results were never a forgone conclusion. When you look at any artwork that excites you ( that means YOU Yarko not me), from a cave painting to classical greek sculpture to comic book to a contemporary installation, I believe a large part of that excitement is traceable to risks the artist took in doing that experiment – in stepping beyond sure results. I hope you will join me in this experiment, this artwork. If you participate though, you must accept that while I, as an artist with many years of experience, have an hypothesis and some pretty good predictions, the end results of our mutual creativity ultimately can not be known in advance.
I am currently editing videos and creating this mutual space. I hope you will keep an open mind at least through the Sun Oct 18. That is your personal choice, not mine. I suspect I have raised at least as many issues as I have answered in my reply . I’m afraid because of time constraints, I will not be able to respond directly until after the project begins on the 18th. If you don’t want to participate in the project but would like to continue a debate of those issues, I will be happy do so after Dec 20th, 2011. I have already made a personal commitment to the hundreds of people who have already signed up to focus on the project at hand. However I am open to debating the project, the results, my viewpoint, even my “credentials” again in whatever context interests or perplexes you after its completion.
work too hard, think too much and have way too much fun,
Aprille Best Glover
PS. My personal website with an overview of my other recent art projects is http://www.aprille.info
Could you please elaborate on this paragraph from the 2nd Section 3 under About Introduction to Artistic Intelligence?
“Every week will have two short course assignments. At mid-term act person will create an artwork based on a premise or question. Each person will other artwork for the course final. Course participants will upload their assignments on to the website for optional private or public display. Then participating group can comment and discuss the works created. WORK WILL NOT BE COMMENTED ON BY THE PUBLIC.”
There appear to be some crucial grammatical/spelling errors where you talk about the artwork we will create for mid-term and the course final. I would appreciate it if you could clarify the highlighted words please.
oops. How in the heck did that paragraph even end up online? Thanks for noticing, see the corrected paragraph above