Communications of the ACM
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How the “Frontier” Became the Slogan of Uncontrolled AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been billed as the next frontier of humanity: the newly available expanse whose exploration …
From Computational Complexity
I gave a poster session at Erdos 100- so how did it go?
In a a prior post I suggested that STOC perhaps have people give posters instead of talks. While I doubt this will ever happen I think its worth thinking about,...
From Computational Complexity
A(nother) nice use of Gen Functions
In a prior post I tried to give a simple example of a proof that uses Gen Functions where there was no other way to do it. For better or worse, before I posted...
From Computational Complexity
DUMP YOUR TABLES! (the moral of my story that started with a hat problem)
Recall from my last post: PROBLEM 1: There are n people sitting on chairs in a row. Call them p1,...,pn. They will soon have HATS put on their heads, RED or BLUE...
From Computational Complexity
A problem and later a story and a point.
I have (1) a math problem to tell you about (though I suspect many readers already know it), (2) a story about it, and (3) a point to make. TODAY I'll just do the...
From Computational Complexity
Combinatorics use to not get any respect. But because of Erdos...
(This blog is based on things I heard at the Erdos 100th Bday Conference) I have spend the last week at the Erdos 100th bday conference. One point that was made...
From Computational Complexity
Quantum Tecniques/Gen Functions- don't be afraid of new techniques
Ronald de Wolf gave a GREAT talk at CCC on the uses of Quantum techniques to Classical Problems. He made the analogy of using the Prob Method to prove non-prob...
From Computational Complexity
Fraud or not ?
For each of these, are they frauds? The Turk was a chess playing ``computer'' (around 1770) that was later discovered to be cheating--- a human made the moves...
From Computational Complexity
STOC: Some NON-radical ideas
At the STOC business meeting Joan Feigenbaum (PC chair) raised some very good points. There was no real discussion (or perhaps the burning car was the discussion)...
From Computational Complexity
Do you KNOW how you KNOW what you KNOW? I don't KNOW.
When watching Jeopardy with Darling if I get a question correct that is NOT in my usual store of knowledge (that is NOT Ramsey Theory, NOT Vice Presidents, NOTHow...
From Computational Complexity
Mother's Day Math
Problem: On Mothers day (May 12 this year) restaurants are very crowded because many people take their mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, etc out to lunch...
From Computational Complexity
Are you smarter than a fifth grader? I'm not.
My darling sometimes watches TV in the middle of the night when she can't sleep.So I found myself watching (actually listening) to the quiz show Are You Smarter...
From Computational Complexity
Computer Assisted Proofs- still controversial?
Kenneth Appel, of Appel-Haken Four Color Theorem Fame, died recently. See here for an obit. In 1972 I read that the four-color theorem was an open problem.here...
From Computational Complexity
Oh, I remember/recorded/DVRed it well
You can now wear a device, Memoto that will take a picture every 30 seconds. Do you really have a Kodak Moment every 30 seconds? No, but this way when you do have...
From Computational Complexity
Post Mordem on an April Fool's day joke
Recall that on April Fools Day I had a post about R(5) being discovered via a collaboration of Math and History. Many readers emailed me asking how many people...
From Computational Complexity
You should apply for STOC and/or CCC travel money (students)
Once again there is some money from ACM and from NSF for students to goto STOC, and I am the one to send the applications to. The link for info on how to apply...
From Computational Complexity
Is the rule of threes a meta-urban legend?
Roger Ebert died on April 4, 2013 Margaret Thatcher died on April 8, 2013. I have heard the urban legend that celebrities die in threes. Does anyone really believe...
From Computational Complexity
A nice case of interdisciplinary research
All of the math and history in this post is elaborated on in my paper here. Are there any interesting applications of PURE math to the Social Sciences or History...
From Computational Complexity
Counting Descriptions- a ``new'' complexity class
Let nσ(w) is the number of σ's in w. We often ask our students about languages like { w | na(w) = 2nb(w) } (CFL but not REG). Lets formally define languages that...
From Computational Complexity
Will they use EasyPope to pick the Pope in 2050?
AP press 2050: The new pope was elected in just 2 hours using EasyPope, the software based on EasyChair, software designed to deciding which papers get into a conference...
From Computational Complexity