
Richard Hamming on Artificial Intelligence (1995) [video] - beshrkayali
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8YXG5fy9mBb85pbuh1HaUSm1WsUqGIA6
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n0us
As an informal observation, one of the best parts about older professors was
that they avoid the extreme nuance that some of the younger professors and TAs
get into. Although that can be interesting also, I feel as if it sometimes
misses the bigger picture.

Older lecturers have had a lifetime to think about their problem domain and
are often able to convey things very clearly and un-confrontationally. They
aim to challenge you rather than defeat you. They are also less concerned with
proving themselves and thus are generally more willing to lecture about things
that are more in line with their true beliefs and aren't just designed to make
them look smart. It's hard to put into words I suppose what makes talks like
these so great.

On another note: this was basically a philosophy lecture which I think is
great.

~~~
jonlawlor
His book "Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers" is brilliant, his
work included information theory, sampling, and running bell labs during its
most productive time. He wasn't a professor, he was a giant.

~~~
bboreham
I also very much recommend "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering", which
is mostly philosophical but has quite a few partial differential equations in
it.

Available as a complete pdf here: [http://worrydream.com/refs/Hamming-
TheArtOfDoingScienceAndEn...](http://worrydream.com/refs/Hamming-
TheArtOfDoingScienceAndEngineering.pdf)

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jgalt212
It's been posted here before, but Hamming's talk "You and Your Research" is
one for the ages.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw)

Hamming passed in 1998, this talk was given about three years earlier. So much
sage advice as compiled over a very long and fruitful career.

~~~
nemild
My father went to this talk, and speaks glowingly about Hamming.

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Kenji
_A second major difficulty is your religion. And you have different religions.
The question of religion, you have man created god, sorry, god created man in
his image_

Hahaha that was one of the most beautiful Freudian Slips I ever had the joy of
witnessing.

That aside, the philosophical introduction seems mediocre, those are questions
you naturally come up with all by yourself if you use computers.

As much as I love Hamming's work like Hamming codes, I am not a fan of his
lectures (it is not the first one I've started watching either).

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goldenkey
One of the issues of thought is that its like a machine learning ruleset but
by the time we are of age to contemplate how our own conscious thinking works,
the whole thing is nearly undecipherable to the subjective self. Hamming
describes well, we do what we do. Machines do what they do. Now if strict
rules are followed, wheres the thought?

At a strictly information theoretic approach to intelligence, I think we can
agree that decision making is the atom of intelligent life or intelligent
machines. Since consciousness is (insert spiritual uptick here) but moreso a
geometric effect, ie. Every being feels their conscious space somewhere in
their body (most likely the head.) the only individuality one can really find
is of experience, and therefore memory, and therefore ammo for decision rules.

Quantum physics also is nice in that it allows for any possible physical
arrangement for the next moment in spacetime, although the highly unlikely
physical interactions are well...unlikely.

So if "destiny" of a human being is quantum effects in both the brain and
reality providing randomness. And birth and body providing genetics,
epigenetics, a starting ruleset. The closest we can come to crediting
ourselves as decision makers, is that we follow pretty logical Darwinian-
evolved logic. And quantum physics lets us add the outliers and the absolute
exclusion set of programming as a reality. I like to see free will as (well at
least the experience is not controlled by anyone else) hey..randomness is a
free spirit. Physics, nature, "The Great Animator" might not even possess
knowledge of the future because of quanta. Its also an implication for time
travel, if quanta are reversed, the they may flatten to different bits. Ride
the wave! :-)

