Machines and Metaphors

I quite enjoy discussions. However, talking just to people within my friend circle can sometimes become boring. After all, I tend to attract similar perspectives, and to occasionally challenge my own outlook, and see things from another vantage point is something I'd like to do. Events with discussion groups are a great place to do this. But one thing that tends to be a challenge with such events, is who to allocate which group to. Let's say there are 5 discussion groups, and the Google Form you have created allows a prospective participant to select their First-Choice and Second-Choice. How do you decide which groups to allocate to each participant? And this is a more general problem than the obscure idea of a discussion event: it could apply in a virtual conference of educational seminars, or even in class allocations.  The most interesting part about AI, is its ability to express and solve seemingly subjective problems. Yes, I do mean that Simulated Annealing can solve this ...

  I've written all the instructions and code into another  Python Notebook . This will be a more non-traditional application of simulated annealing. We'll implement One More, and then move on to the next algorithm. This is a viewer to see the notebook. Then, you can click Open with Google Colab, Login to your Google Account, and you will be able to edit your own copy of the notebook. If you are doing this, ignore the request in the notebook to make a copy before editing.

I've written all the instructions and code into a Python Notebook . This is a viewer to see the notebook. Then, you can click Open with Google Colab, Login to your Google Account, and you will be able to edit your own copy of the notebook. If you are doing this, ignore the request in the notebook to make a copy before editing.

Introduction: Now that the strange title has attracted you to the article, StOp stands for Stochastic Optimization. This is the first episode in our mini-series. I've been mulling over this article for months now, which is kind of absurd considering that this is meant to be a quick series, but I apologize for my online dormancy. In the meanwhile, I was working on writing content for a course on Machine Learning. If you're still in school (not college), and you want to learn more, check out:  https://code-4-tomorrow.thinkific.com/courses/machine-learning At any rate, let's get started. Expansion and Exploitation: In some ways, the more of this you read about, the more you begin to think of the world as an array of optimization processes - from the bargain you settle on with the grocer to the conversation you had before you sold your company. But an unfortunate side-effect of this kind of outlook, is that you often become a visibly more selfish person. You spend more time exp...