Research

The Genesis Group is a passionate collection of faculty, staff, and students working toward the goal of understanding intelligence.

The vision of the Genesis Group is captured in a trilogy: The Strong Story Hypothesis and the Directed Perception Hypothesis, The Right Way, and The Next 50 Years: a Personal View.

The Genesis Group is part of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

The Genesis Group participated in the Belief Dynamics and Decision Making effort, which studied behaviors of individuals, groups, and governing bodies, and especially their interactions.

Case-understanding developments promoted by the BDDM effort laid the groundwork that enabled the group to study the role of case analysis in international relations through Explorations in Cyber International Relations, a collaborative MIT-Harvard research program.

The Genesis Group participates in I², MIT's Intelligence Initiative, a new campus wide effort initiated by Marc Kastner, Dean of MIT's School of Science, aimed at developing a broad scientific understanding of the brain and human intelligence.

Teaching

In the fall, I teach 6.034, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, a large class.

Grades are calculated in accord with several student-oriented principles. For example, because we want to encourage each student to compete with himself/herself and not with each other, we no longer compute a class average. Because anyone can have a bad day, each segment of the material is tested both in a quiz and on the final, and we only count the higher grade.

We who teach the subject are pleased to note that grades are correlated with attendance at lectures, quiz reviews, recitations, and tutorials.

Anticipating a shift of skill building to the on-line world, we have enriched the subject with what we call Right-now Talks, aimed at exposing exciting, up-to-the-minute research occuring at MIT.

In the spring, I teach 6.xxx (also known as 6.803 and 6.833), The Human Intelligence Enterprise, a class in which I focus on contributions that visionary thinkers have made toward developing a computational explanation of intelligence.

During the Independent Activities period, I talk on the subject of How To Speak. The talk helps people do a better job in lectures, theses defenses, and job talks.

The next offering will be in 2014.

If you can't wait, an aging version, lacking the latest material, is available from the Harvard Bok Center.

Awards

All of us involved in developing and teaching 6.034 and 6.xxx over the years are immensely pleased that our work on these subjects has been appreciated by students. Our collective efforts led to the 2011 Eta Kappa Nu Teaching Award for excellence in instruction, a MacVicar Faculty Fellowship in 2011, the Baker Award for undergraduate teaching in 2010, and the Graduate Student Council Teaching Award in 2006. Unknown, but heroic students went to a lot of trouble to make it happen.

Books

The web site for these books provides sample chapters, tables of contents, and software.

Free, online editions of On To Java, On to Smalltalk On to C and On to C++ are available via the website.

Pensées

Sean Collier Hero and MIT Police Officer Killed while on duty 18 April 2013 We are united in our admiration for a young man who cared for our community and made a difference. 24 April 2013

Recent pensées

Arcosanti pensées

Favorite pensées

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Most of these pensées appear also on the blog of the MIT Alumni Association.

What MIT should do

I believe technology will take university education through a period of instability—what Andy Grove would call a 10X period—as new educational technology is introduced for the first time since the invention of movable type. This period of instability coincides with a window of global scientific opportunity and engineering challenge.

Accordingly, I believe that technical universities that want to be important in 2050 should chart a new course now, which I lay out, somewhat telegraphically in a sample mission statement and in a fanciful interview, recorded in 2050.

The Faculty News Letter

I am on the board of the MIT Faculty News Letter, the voice of the MIT faculty. In that capacity I have contributed substantially to two editorials on MITx, MIT's on-line initiative:

MITx discusses pros and cons of going on line.

What's Next with MITx comments on possible futures and suggests questions that should be asked.

I have also contributed several Teach Talk articles:

Skills, Big Ideas, and Getting Grades Out of the Way explains how we give students two shots at showing they know the material.

Looking at the Numbers looks at the correlation between lecture attendance and grades.

Dialog on Right-Now Talks describes an experiment aimed at exposing students to what's going on in research right now.

The State of the Institute

From 2006 to 2012, I expressed concern from time to time about a drift of MIT away from mission, community, and collegiality. Now, however, we have new leadership, so I have moved the philippics to page two, preserved for the record, and focus page one on the future.

MIT.150

If you missed the symposia that were part of MIT150 Celebration, too bad. They were great. Fortunately, you didn't really miss them, as they are all on line.

In the Computation and the Transformation of Practically Everything Symposium, I spoke in the History panel.

In the Brains, Minds, and Machines Symposium, I spoke in the Golden Age Keynote Panel. and the Language and Thought Panel.

Will.i.am

Will likes to see stuff at MIT whenever he is in town. This time I took him to see robots in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, wearable computing in the Media Lab, and miscellaneous cool stuff in the Precision Engineering Research Group. It wasn't hard to find people to help out.

Continued...

Where.i.am

My office is room 32-251 in MIT's Stata Center, which was designed by Frank Gehry

Who.i.am
You can learn more about what I'm up to from both the Curriculum vitae and the rest of this home page.

Several friends and I started Ascent Technology, Inc., a company that develops products that solve complex resource-planning, resource-scheduling, resource-allocation, and situation-assessment problems.

I just completed my third term as a member of The Naval Research Advisory Committee, which advises the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chief of Naval Research on technical matters.

I chaired the committee from 1997–2000 when I hit the statutory 6-year limit on continuous service. During my term as chair, NRAC focused on manning and on the concept of an all-electric Navy. One high-impact NRAC study, Reduced Ship Manning, led to the Smart Ship Program. Another, CVX Flexibility/Integrated Electric Power emphasized the need to move toward electric drive on our carriers.

For the Record

The Great Debate

A guide to materials prepared in behalf of latke for the 2008 Latke-Hamantashen debate. A video is also available on You Tube

The MIT FSILG Task Force

I have strong views about MIT's system of fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups. During 2002–2004 I co-chaired, with Stephen Immerman, the MIT Task Force on FSILGs: Status and Future Development. The work of the task force led to a detailed report recommending a six-step plan and the creation of Project Aurora.