Reddit mentions: The best artificial intelligence & science books

>I agree, but being "one of the great works of literature" is conditioned upon our human perspective on the matter. To an alien race, both books are equally random and thus equally "complex".

This is where you are mistaken. Any intelligent species would be able to recognize patterns and might eventually decode our language. Why? Because there is a structure that is non-natural, non-random. You make the mistake of assuming that because we recognize such patterns as intelligent beings that therefore these patterns are the product of an intelligent mind. This is exactly backwards. Because we have an intelligent mind, we are capable of recognizing patterns that are real. The complex structures of a shark's eye would exist with or without us, and would be objectively more complex with or without us. The fact that a mind is requisite to understanding this thing does not mean a mind is a necessity for its condition. Rather, all we do with our mind is describe an objectively observable phenomena. Any intelligent mind would be capable of coming to the exact same conclusion because of the fact of the brain's construct. This is not a matter of perspective. It is a matter of observable fact.

>20 A's in a row versus 20 seemingly random letters in a row versus 20 letters in a row that makes sense to you. How would you rank them in terms of complexity, and why? I'm guessing you'd go from bottom up, but I might be wrong.

That depends on a lot. The first is actually quite complex in that it is an unnatural pattern. One would never expect to get a series of A's randomly, so it is almost certainly the product of a non-random phenomena. The second might be complex in that it could be a coded message. Both these facts could be determined by an intelligent alien species with absolutely no knowledge of Earth languages. Indeed, if such language were truly random, we would never be able to decode "lost languages" like written Mayan. Yet, amazingly, because we are so good at recognizing patterns, we can eventually decode languages that have not been written for over a thousand years, and for which there are no translations to work from of any kind. If language really were all the same as you posit, this would be impossible.

If you want a good example to challenge your assumption that this string is only meaningful to humans, I would say lets step away from language and towards other patterns such as faces. Dogs can recognize faces just as humans can. We can both recognize a face because we both have the ability to recognize patterns. If you rearrange a face randomly, the ability to recognize a person goes away. Why? Because the pattern has been lost.

>I agree, but being "one of the great works of literature" is conditioned upon our human perspective on the matter. To an alien race, both books are equally random and thus equally "complex".

The great work of literature part is surely a subjective judgment, but that wasn't really the thrust of my point. The key is that in one case, the book communicates information, in the other case, no information is communicated at all.

>both strings contain equally much data and are thus equally complex.

Ah, but that is decidedly not true. There is in fact a statistical distinction between truly random information and non-random information. Indeed the entire field of Information Theory was developed in recognition of this fact. It started when someone happened to notice a strange coincidence that turned out to reveal a very important phenomena: the distribution of the "bits" sent over telegraph very much resembled the statistical curve of thermodynamic processes. Turns out, this distribution exists precisely because the information sent over telegraph is highly ordered. As soon as you send truly random information, the distribution looks like a system that has achieved entropy. It is all meaningless background noise. This is why, when we look for intelligent life, we look for patterns, because patterns are an objective feature of information exchange. Without patterns, information literally cannot be exchanged.

In fact, if you are open to having your viewpoint changed, there is a great book about information theory called Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes which explains a lot of what I am articulating here. In short, the very fact that we are able to understand things about the universe and then take advantage of that understanding is contingent upon 1) these patterns existing and 2) us being able to understand and manipulate these patterns. If they weren't real, we wouldn't even be able to make sense of our surroundings. Indeed our very existence is owed to these patterns existing, for life and evolution would be impossible without it. So it is not a matter of perspective, it is a feature of reality.

First of all, do you intend to keep them? A turtle is a pet that will require a lot of care and a lot of time for many years, since most species live for very long. And they are really NOT pets for kids, expecially young kids. They carry bacterias like salmonella, which can be harmful to kids and adults alike. Playing of touching the turtle should always be done with adult supervision and make sure everybody washes their hands after! Sorry for saying this, but your friend should have known better than to give turtles to kids. They make wonderful pets, but such a decision shouldn't be taken lightly. I think people should never give any kind of pets as gifts, but that's just me. Either way, kind of a dick move.

Anyway, if you want to keep them, you're going to need to invest in a tank, or maybe even two. A small one should do for now, but they grow up fast so keep that in mind! Also, as they grow older and bigger, keeping them in the same tank might no be a good idea. They might either fight or make more turtles, and you wouldn't want that. A filter will also be necessary, as well a a uv and heat lamp and bulbs, and a water heater. The best you can do is read a much as you can about turtle care online or in books. Those look to me like Red Eared sliders, but it's hard to tell so I could be wrong. If I may suggest a book a personally really like for beginners, this one. It will tell you all about basic care for sliders, perhaps it could help more than the internet.

The first year or so is the most important for young turtles. Proper care, heat and feeding is required or they might develop problems that will stay or get worst as they grow up. I know it's a lot of information just dumped on you like this, but if you do want to keep them, it's a necessity. I've had a my turtle for three years now and I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world, but it really isn't for everyone, it's not an easy pet.

And if you don't want to keep them, try and find someone who will. Don't let them go in the wild, they will die. :c


Anyway, hope this helps! I'm no expert, but if you ever need anything, feel free to ask me, i'd be glad to help if I can. :) Good day!

I like both of the books that you mention, but Bostrom's Superintelligence is more about the impacts of a certain kind of AI that most researchers aren't even working on. Hawking's On Intelligence is probably nicer if you're interested in how AI (and the neocortex) might work, but you should realize that it's just one approach.

Ray Kurzweil's How to Create a Mind is also about reverse-engineering the brain. For an overview of the history of the field, I recommend checking out Nils Nilsson's The Quest for AI which has a free online web version (pdf). If you're more interested in the subfield of machine learning, you might also try Pedro Domingos' The Master Algorithm.

And how do you feel about undergraduate textbooks? Undergraduates are laymen before they start reading these and taking their courses, right? The AI textbook is Russell & Norvig's AI: A Modern Approach, but it's very extensive. Some lighter reading we used in one of my courses was The Essence of AI by Alison Cawsey, and from I remember it was fine, but when I was searching for it I also saw many more introductory books that I didn't read, but which might be better (and/or more recent). I just don't know. There's also a pretty good free online textbook by Poole and Mackworth.

You may be able to find a job that uses no C++ at all, especially on legacy projects, but pretty much every relevant new project is C++. You absolutely should know both C and C++ if you're serious about embedded development and I estimate that at least 70% of the jobs require C++, at least in western Europe.

You can start your embedded C++ journey with Real-Time C++: Efficient Object-Oriented and Template Microcontroller Programming, which explains the subset of (modern) C++ most often used for embedded programming. There is a lot more to C++ than this. It's probably the most complex language in mainstream use. This will get you started, but I suggest expanding your general C++ knowledge right after you read the book.

This book also assumes thorough knowledge of embedded C, which in turn requires excellent knowledge of C in general. So I suggest you learn C well (I suggest reading C Programming: A Modern Approach by K. N. King), then learning about embedded C (Making Embedded Systems: Design Patterns for Great Software by Elecia White and Test Driven Development for Embedded C by James Grenning), and then learning embedded C++ from the previously mentioned book. Then you should broaden your general C++ knowledge and learn about design patterns (these are canonical approaches to solving frequently encountered problems). You'll have to learn Make (and probably CMake) along the way, and should use git from the get go. This is my brief intro to embedded programming.

I suggest getting the book Artificial Intelligence: a Modern Approach.

It's chock full of AI algorithms, with examples as to where they are used. The source code is also available in Java and Python.

Another good AI book is Artificial Intelligence : A Guide to Intelligent Systems. It's our class textbook for Machine Learning, supplementing the AIMA book, and it's pretty good.

For algorithms, CLRS is an excellent book.

The boids homepage has some good historical stuff. I believe there are a few swarm intelligence books out there like this one and then most modern stuff is going to be in conference papers and journals.

Note that the original boids followed very simple rules. You can get quite complex behavior with a few simple rules. The flip side is that it's extremely difficult to guarantee any kind of behavior in the control-theoretic sense with these kinds of multiple interacting systems. What we always did was have a good software simulation system where we could test out our new rules without the risk of crashing airplanes in real life. After many simulated runs, when we were convinced that the algorithms would behave well in most situations, we would port to hardware and test there.

Edit: Some folks are suggesting that the Kennedy book is more approachable.

Thanks for responding in depth.

So sad though that the 'advanced' books they recommend all seem to be in Russian. I learned two semester's worth of Russian almost 10 years ago, ugh.

Any in depth, good English-language books? I have a basic grasp on Model A, Reinin dichotomies, the specific ways information elements manifest in each position, relations, quadras, each two letter grouping, etc. I want to get to that next level.

Do you speak Russian? Just curious.

ETA: This was highly recommended by someone; the other immediate English language search results are about finding love via relations.

I'd love to spend some time talking about this, but I don't have much of it available currently. I'm absolutely not saying this with any kind of malicious intent, but this is a very simple model of the universe that's contradicted by a large body of observations. It's definitely good to use you're brain the way you're doing, but there's quite a lot of background information that is not being considered by this theory. I see you arguing with increasing conviction below in support of this theory but I suggest you not over play your belief in these ideas lest you're forced to admit and uncomfortably large slice of humble pie later when some one shoots it full of incontrovertible holes.

I'm honestly trying my best not to be offensive but it's hard to avoid an ego bruising when you're telling some one their ideas are wrong.

If you really want to arm yourself with a deeper understanding of what the universe is, this book is extremely interesting if you've got the perseverance for it.

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amazon.co.uk

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amazon.com.au

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amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

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Artificial Intelligence: A Guide to Intelligent Systems is a very well written book.

Just FYI there is a 3rd edition out. Great book.

Real Time C++ 3rd Edition

>This one includes a lot of useful stuff: Real-Time C++: Efficient Object-Oriented and Template Microcontroller Programming

Does it involve hands on programming practices/projects or it's mainly theory? I haven't bought a single book on programming and I am wondering if it's worth a shot -- specially now that I am looking to work on STM32 and low level drivers and maybe RTOS as well

I own a copy of PHP5 CMS Framework Development and wrote a review of it here (there are also a couple of other reviews floating online).

I should emphasis that you shouldn't try to emulate the structure of the framework created in that book. For example it doesn't use Zend_Style_Class_Names which was the standard at the time (you should use namespaces) and almost every component of the framework is a singleton (which is bad, depending on who you talk to). That being said the chapters on database abstraction, internationalization and access control are pretty good.

If you want to buy a book that covers each issue/feature a framework needs to address, I recommend this one. It sets out one way of structuring a framework. After reading it you should compare it's structure to other frameworks (Kohana, Symfony2, Yii) and then pick and choose what you like/dislike.

hey! here are a couple resources:

• https://www.coursera.org/course/recsys
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Recommender-Systems-Introduction-Dietmar-Jannach/dp/0521493366/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396972808&sr=1-1&keywords=recommender+systems
  
  Besides that, my recommendation (ha) is to just start building. Start it simple and see how good you can get it - it is easy to think only in terms of scaling, but if we can focus on the human-side (how people actually react to the recommendations) then we can't go wrong. (I hope!)

In your case, something like "Practical Ruby for System Administration" would work better.

Well, you're going to need PHP, certainly. (Technically, Django or RoR would work as well, but I think PHP is the easiest, and needs almost no setup.)

You'll need to learn about sessions, database connections, and user management in general. I learned it myself from a book. Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/PHP-CMS-Framework-Development-management/dp/1847193579

Search for "Effective C++ in an Embedded Environment" by Scott Meyers. It's a course handout which covers all important topics from my point of view.

This one includes a lot of useful stuff: Real-Time C++: Efficient Object-Oriented and Template Microcontroller Programming

I also bought this one this year, but I'm not convinced: https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/hands-embedded-programming-c17

Speaking of Ruby, I have appreciated Practical Ruby for System Administration when it comes to automating server stuff.

If you remember your "basic" C++, i have found the following to be the best introduction to learning "modern" C++.

• Discovering Modern C++
  
• The C++ Programming Language, 4th edition If you have the older editions of this book, hang on to them so that you can compare "modern c++" to "traditional c++". Moreover the older editions were more succinct thus enabling you to quickly grasp some core concept.
  
• Real-time C++ This is somewhat different but uses C++11/14 features throughout.
  

http://www.amazon.com/Practical-System-Administration-Experts-Source/dp/1590598210/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347133830&sr=8-1&keywords=ruby+system+administration

)

Have you read Real-Time C++? It gives lots of strategies for doing embedded work in C++.

IEEE 61131-3 is the thing to lookup. I purchased this book as my intro and got some inexpensive PLC hardware to learn: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGEGLQE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_50TyCbQTFEHB9

Chang & Lee's book is a classical starting point:

http://www.amazon.com/Symbolic-Mechanical-Theorem-Computer-Mathematics/dp/0121703509/

Here's what we do for our entry level people;

• Grab a machine off ebay or build your own and get vagrant up and running with a bunch of VMs from http://www.vagrantbox.es/ or use EC2 / OpenStack etc
  
• Sign up for Hosted chef (free for 5 nodes) https://getchef.opscode.com/signup
  
• Clone the OpsCode Git Repo and have a poke around
  
• Learn about Ruby and Git
  
• Learn what the Chef Recipes do http://docs.opscode.com/
  
• Start making your Vagrant / EC2 / OpenStack VMs actually do something by assigning Chef Roles and recipes
  
• Start monitoring your systems with Graphite, http://riemann.io/ and others
  
  Once you've done that sign up for DevOps weekly http://devopsweekly.com/
  
  Finally remember that DevOps is neither one thing or the other, learn a variety of programming languages, learn that traditional Ops silos don't always work and learn new ways of doing stuff (agile, infrastructure as code etc etc).

Hard Real-Time Computing Systems - Predictable Scheduling

Automating Linux and Unix System Administration

I have this one and it is very cool https://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Methods-Recommender-Systems-Agarwal/dp/1107036070

The problem with the books about RS is that they are all really long and quite theoretical! It can be very painful to even skim through them..