journal

defining ai

December 12, 2020
AI

introduction#

In the summer of 1956, Dartmouth College held its first Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence to discuss developments in a new field called (and there coined) “artificial intelligence.” But, the idea of thinking mechanical agents …

what is a successful teaching career

February 17, 2025
Teaching, Thought

successful teaching#

I think a rewarding teaching career must be defined by my relationships with students. If I go through my whole career without significantly impacting my students (i.e., their lives are virtually unchanged by our time together), then I …

music gestation

December 17, 2024
Music

the basic idea#

We think in language. True, we can experience our senses mentally, e.g., when we “see images” or “hear sounds” in our mind, but each of these mental concepts can be thought of as symbols, codifying their own …

anthropomorphization of algorithms

June 13, 2021
Ethics, AI

motivation#

Daily human life is becoming increasingly intertwined with algorithms. The people who develop these algorithms (and, to a lesser extent, the implicit users of these algorithms — the general public) can only use their native languages to …

reinforcement learning and ethics

December 20, 2020
AI, Music

introduction#

In the short film Perfectly Natural, we see a young couple, their new baby, and a simulated reality where the baby interacts with her artificially programmed parents. Over the course of this film’s fourteen minutes, we see a familiar thread …

prometheus and google

October 1, 2020
Society, Linguistics, Recommender Systems

introduction#

In creating media based on myths, symbols, and idols, we may lose the value and meaning of the original if recommender systems and search algorithms do not find a harmonic balance between meaning and object. The burden lies on the recommender …