Citizen 10th December 2010 - the City of London School

Friday December 10 2010
Page 3
School news
The Mind of a Machine: Artificial Intelligence
Citizen Reporter
On 24 November 2010, Paul Curzon came
to the school to give a talk on artificial
intelligence. Probably when you think
of artificial intelligence, you think of
imaginary things, like R2-D2 and Wall-E,
things from the movies. And to a certain
extent this is true. Researchers from, for
example, Disney or Pixar, do come to
computer programmers to find out what is
possible for robots or computer-like beings
to do in their movies. The question that
Paul Curzon asked was, “If we identify
abilities as intelligent, can we build
machines to also have these abilities?”
Paul Curzon gave an interesting
demonstration where he held up a piece
of paper, and said, “This piece of paper is
more intelligent than the whole school.”
We then had to answer why. We later
found out that this piece of paper held
the instructions on how to never loose a
game of noughts and crosses. But then the
point was raised that it wasn’t the piece of
paper that was intelligent, but the person
who had written the instructions. This then
was counter-acted by the example that in
1997, a computer beat the reigning world
champion of chess, but the programmers
of that computer couldn’t have beaten
him. The reason the computer won was
that it was following rules. You could
argue that if something is following rules,
it is therefore stupid, and only doing
what it has been told to do. But it was
working out which rule to follow from the
current circumstances, and I think that is
intelligent.
Going back to the question above, it is
Responses to the
Proposals passed by
the Joint Committee
Mr Griffin Second Master
Below you will see the responses to the
proposals which appeared in last week’s Citizen
and which have been considered by the Senior
Management of the School.
1.“That the First Form trip not always be to
London Zoo”
This is accepted in principle, but it is up to
the Head of First Form & OG to decide on the
very simple to build a machine that plays
snap with nine people, six lengths of
rope and six cardboard tubes. Look at the
diagram below. If person 1 were to see
person A hold up a red card, he would
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destination of the trip, so this motion has been
forwarded to Mr Kerr.
2.“Improved ipod docking facilities in the
weights room be installed”
Again, approved in principle and will be
forwarded to Mr Cornwell as Director of Sport
for his consideration.
3.“Increase the number of fully subsidised
theatre trips”
As mentioned in the Joint Committee minutes,
theatre visits which are directly linked to public
examination courses in e.g. English and Drama,
are usually paid for by the School. Other visits
which are organised by other Departments or
Societies (e.g. Barnes-Amis) are included in the
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fire his cardboard tube to person 5. Then
if person 2 saw person B hold up another
red card, he would fire his cardboard
tube to person 5. Now that person 5 has
2 tubes, he would fire his one to person
7, who would then shout ‘SNAP!’ This is
a very simple way of demonstrating the
similarities of computers and neurons in
the brain.
To find out more, go to www.cs4n.org/ai/
Dr Paul Curzon is a Reader in Computer
Science in the School of Electronic
Engineering and Computer Science, Queen
Mary, University of London. In 2010 he was
made a National Teaching Fellow by the
Higher Education Academy, and in 2009 he
was shortlisted for the 2009 Times Higher
Education Most Innovative Teacher of the Year
Award.
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appropriate budgets and it is up to the Head of
Department or Tutor in charge of the Society to
decide how to allocate the funds in that budget.
4.“School Parliament to meet twice in the
Autumn Term”
Agreed and passed to the Speaker of the
Parliament.
5.“Candidates for School Parliament Clerk
be allowed to put their case in The Citizen
and lunchtime hustings be arranged.”
Agreed.
Motions relating to the fabric of the building
and catering have been passed to the relevant
Managers.
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