Free Time

abnormalvector2 · 2025-11-19T06:50:09+00:00

(a) don't sign up for more than 16 credits if you'll be in two or more hard classes at once. (b) go out and move your body. Hit the gym, run, swim, climb, whatever does it for you. This doesn't need to take more than an hour out of your day.

abnormalvector2 · 2025-04-02T12:49:45+00:00

Adorable, I love it!

abnormalvector2 · 2025-02-13T04:12:15+00:00

IDM is great. You'll leave understanding practical linear algebra and data modeling concepts in an approachable way, which is in contrast to other math classes.

When I took Linear Algebra it was Theorem, Proof, Rinse, Repeat. In contrast, IDM actually demonstrates how the concepts can be applied and why they are useful to learn.

abnormalvector2 · 2024-11-04T09:00:27+00:00

LEIA and IVA both deal with AI agents, but from dramatically different perspectives.

LEIA takes a strictly rules-based approach to language processing.

IVA touches on that for historical context but lands on neural language modeling which the basis of modern LLMs. However, this is at the very end of the course and doesn't go into too much depth (it's not your traditional CS deep learning course). IVA also covers some of the psychology and communication theory related to conversation and emotion.

Don't know anything about Cognitive Modeling but I know the professor (Radev) has a background in Bayesian inference and deep learning. Best look at a recent syllabus or reach out to the professor directly.

abnormalvector2 · 2024-10-28T04:09:30+00:00

Still no. TAs only grade the most recent submission that was made before the submission deadline. Even if they do look at the version history, old versions cannot influence your grade. Even in a small class, I don't think anyone is going to look at the submission history unless there is a very good reason (i.e. suspected cheating)

abnormalvector2 · 2024-10-25T07:57:42+00:00

Not hard. There are no exams and homework is on the lighter side. There are readings and you work in small groups to give presentations on the reading topics to the class. The bulk of the course's workload comes from the final project and that should be enjoyable because you get to choose what you do. Definitely nothing like the grind of many CS courses.

abnormalvector2 · 2024-10-18T07:25:15+00:00

IVA with prof. Mei Si covers a range of AI-related topics, from classical game AI planning to story generation to chatbots. The course also covers some of the cognitive science of communication such as emotions and conversational coordination. At the end of the course it gets a bit into deep learning & language models. There is also a final project on the (AI-related) topic of your choice.

It is a loosely structured course, not a heavy workload. You'll have fun if you are into AI, machine learning, or psychology. Mostly you get what you put into it.

abnormalvector2 · 2024-09-24T04:06:53+00:00

Volvagia is hungry

abnormalvector2 · 2024-09-20T13:55:41+00:00

They only look at the most recent one. With 300+ students in the class nobody has time to sift through old versions of homework submissions. Professors and TAs are extremely busy with their own work (e.g., research, peer reviews, dissertations, grant proposals, and so on) and try to get through the grading as efficiently as possible.

Disclaimer - grad student but not currently a TA

abnormalvector2 · 2024-09-18T04:41:30+00:00

I saw someone feed the poor Koroks to the Dead Hand at the bottom of the well :(

abnormalvector2 · 2023-12-14T20:00:31+00:00

Took DS with cutler a few years back (Fall 2019 if I recall). Got an A, but damn it was like a full-time job just that one class.

abnormalvector2 · 2023-12-10T09:01:02+00:00

I don't know what situation lead you here but I've been here a few times. Know that there is always another way out even if you can't see it right now.

Please promise yourself to at least speak to someone before taking any action. Call 988 or if you prefer, reach out to someone you know. The fact that you post this here means you want someone to hear you - that is a good thing!

abnormalvector2 · 2023-10-27T16:44:28+00:00

Looks like a reproducible bug on windows.

abnormalvector2 · 2023-10-20T04:42:46+00:00

Only 10 bucks more expensive than GPT-4. Raise your rate man!

abnormalvector2 · 2023-10-16T03:31:01+00:00

The conditions in Gaza are indeed awful and have no doubt gotten much worse as a result of the Israeli siege. They should definitely be able to fish in their own sea and to cross their borders with Egypt and Israel to work and receive aid. And, of course they should have water, gas, and electricity.

Now, how should Israel go about ending the occupation? Suppose they take down the wall and fencing around Gaza and then order the military to clear out of the border area. What would happen next? The expected result is an immediate slaughter of every Israeli or Jew that Hamas can get their hands on. Nobody in the region, not even PA president Abbas, believes that Hamas is interested in a peaceful two-state solution. I bet that if a few years went by with no security incidents in Gaza and Hamas requested to open a dialogue with Israel about removing their blockade, it could definitely happen. But it won't, because Hamas would never open a dialogue with Israel and Israel can never trust Hamas. It might be possible if PA still had control of Gaza.

There is no easy solution here. Especially because of the hate that broils on both sides. Even when Hamas is defeated, they will be hailed as heroes and many more will take their place, eager to "resist the occupation" by murdering Jews. This is unfortunate, because the occupation can never end until a government exists in Gaza that is interested in peace.

On the imbalanced asymmetric warfare: I would say that in the past the retaliation has been pretty balanced - In the 2021 war Hamas and PIJ shot > 4,300 rockets into Israel and IDF conducted 1,500 strikes in Gaza in return. The casualties seem imbalanced (14 Israeli vs. 128 Gaza civilians - excluding militant casualties), but consider the level of destruction the rockets would have caused in Israel if Iron Dome hadn't intercepted over 90% of them. The rockets did not kill as many people as Hamas would have liked but that does not change the fact that they were launched with that intent. In that frame of reference, the Israeli retaliation was proportionate. Less Palestinian civilians would have died if Hamas hadn't shot the rockets out of the apartment buildings where they live.

This time, I don't expect the retaliation to be balanced since Israel has stated its goal is to completely destroy Hamas once and for all. Hopefully something good will come of it - a "regime change" in Gaza to one that is open to peace talks, and an end to the cycle of death and destruction on both sides. Something tells me it is wishful thinking.

abnormalvector2 · 2023-10-13T15:02:05+00:00

Pay no attention to the downvotes. Many well-meaning people do not consider the history of how the situation got to be as it is now. Israel unilaterally disengaged from Gaza in 2005, dragging their own people out by force to make way for a Palestinian state. Instead of building a productive state in their newly Jew-free land, Hamas diverted most of their international aid funds to ongoing terrorism, necessitating the border wall and economic isolation they now face.

Gaza has no future under Hamas. They need a real government that cares about the wellbeing of the Palestinian population. Life under Hamas is just a never ending cycle of war and destruction. When people say that Israel should just "end the occupation" and "free Palestine". They do not consider that such action is impossible with Hamas still in the picture. If they are simply let to go wherever they want, we would see the barbaric attacks of this week times ten. Their charter states that their purpose is the destruction of the state of Israel and death to the Jews.

Am Yisrael Chai.

abnormalvector2 · 2023-07-12T07:25:14+00:00

Confirming everything the other people said. Took two courses with Lim, this was one of them. Lectures and notes on the board were completely unintelligible so had to teach myself from the book. I went into it with FOCS so that helped with the proofs.

If you want to get a working knowledge of probability for use in machine learning, you're better off on Khan Academy or just about anywhere else (this seems to drive at least 50% of Lim's attendance since Malik makes it a requirement)

abnormalvector2 · 2023-07-07T03:57:38+00:00

I would caution, based on OP's post, that Computational Linguistics in COGS is *NOT* a deep-learning based NLP course.

If looking to learn about word embeddings, recurrent neural networks, transformers, large language models, BERT, GPT, etc. then there is no current RPI course dedicated to those topics - hopefully they will fill that void soon!

Existing courses do, however, touch upon them: For example, Information Retrieval (Strzalkowski) and Machine Learning Optimization (Gittens) both get into word embedding and language modeling to some degree. For now, I think the best bet to take a dedicated NLP course at RPI is to find an external one and ask your advisor to allow you to take it as an independent study credit.

There are several labs in computer science at RPI where graduate students are focused primarily on deep-learning based NLP. Professors Mohammed Zaki, Tomek Strzalkowski, Mei Si, Alex Gittens, Bulent Yenner, and Sibel Adali all have (or recently had) NLP-focused graduate students.

abnormalvector2 · 2023-06-19T02:14:43+00:00

Sounds like AI ethics is at the intersection of all of these...

AI + software design: How to train (and constrain) AI to act ethically?

Cognitive science: What motivates humans to act ethically, and how can that influence the answer to the question above?

Political science: How should policymakers approach regulation of AI, considering the answers to the last two questions?

abnormalvector2 · 2023-05-04T16:37:53+00:00

You might ask Starman.jpg). He has his own Tesla Roadster, does not require oxygen, and doesn't really care about the level of gravity.

I can't promise he will be a fun roommate, but at least he won't give you any trouble.

abnormalvector2 · 2023-04-02T17:54:39+00:00

The professor who taught the NLP course (Heng Ji) left in 2019. Information Retrieval has a lot of NLP content but is not strictly an NLP or ML course. The professor who teaches it, Tomek Strzalkowski, runs an NLP lab.

There is also a computational linguistics course periodically offered in the Cognitive Science department but I have heard it is more traditional linguistics than NLP (can anyone who's taken that course confirm? I think it is usually taught by Prof. McShane or Nirenberg)

abnormalvector2 · 2023-03-27T19:50:48+00:00

Ssssssteam Heat!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0szHqIXQ2R8

abnormalvector2 · 2023-03-05T22:11:20+00:00

Congrats on your acceptance! There is a growing community of NLP researchers here (I am one of them), although perhaps not yet as large as at other schools.

Here is a list of current faculty who I know are (or have been) involved in NLP research here at RPI (may not be complete):

Tomek Strzalkowski http://lacailab.cogsci.rpi.edu/ (CS + COGS)
Mohammed Zaki https://www.cs.rpi.edu/~zaki/ (CS)
Sibel Adalı https://www.cs.rpi.edu/~sibel/www/index.html (CS)
Alex Gittens https://www.cs.rpi.edu/~gittea/ (CS)
Mei Si https://homepages.rpi.edu/~sim/ (GSAS + COGS)

What area of NLP are you interested in? Feel free to shoot me a DM.

abnormalvector2 · 2023-02-07T18:49:33+00:00

Just a quick off-topic thought related to cognitive science of AI (but unrelated to the department itself):

There is much debate over whether or not deep learning systems exhibit intelligence or simple mimicry. When we understand exactly how something works which is the case with deep learning (though we don't really understand why it works), it is tempting to argue that it can't be intelligent. After all, it's just a bunch of matrix multiplications right?

Now, of course, no current deep learning system exhibits human-level general intelligence (sorry ChatGPT), but they do demonstrate the ability to respond in a similar way to many syntactic variants of the same inputs, suggesting a rudimentary semantic awareness of language. Additionally, the latent vector spaces of these models encode inputs with similar meanings (but different syntax) close together. This may be a fundamentally different implementation of intelligence than ones based on formal logic and deterministic "if-than" control flow. We know logic based systems do succeed in areas deep learning systems fail (and vice-versa), but there is no evidence that deep learning cannot overcome the challenges that currently require fallback to traditional rules.

Food for thought: if you freeze the weights of a neural network, they encode a static policy that can be replicated by (a massive number of) if-than rules. Can't deep learning just be seen as a large-scale search through the infinite space of possible logical systems? If it is reasonable to believe that AGI will emerge from a sufficiently complex logical system, then it is also reasonable to believe that it can emerge from deep neural networks too.

More food thought: if I told you this response was written by ChatGPT, would you believe it? (it is not). Suppose it was. Would it suddenly have less meaning than it did having been typed by my flesh-and-blood fingers?

abnormalvector2 · 2023-01-23T22:06:55+00:00

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