Sebastian Thrun AMA on reddit [link]

Dr_Manhattan

http://udacity.blogspot.com/2012/06/sebastian-thrun-udacity-ceo-will.html

While Sebastian is not an AGI researcher his reputation in the broad AI community is high due to him largely making self-driving cars happen (and those are autonomous AI systems, even if narrow). I think his opinion of AGI might worth asking (he has a high position in Google's X-labs)

He is also interesting from due to a number of innovations he partook in that are likely to be pretty historical

Self-driving cars
Formation of Udacity is likely to be remembered as the "event that changed college-level online education"
I don't know how much he is responsible for this directly, but Google X is making headway with pretty futuristic HUD devices that are likely to significantly increase human-computer integration

Link to thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/v59z3/iam_sebastian_thrun_stanford_professor_google_x/

http://udacity.blogspot.com/2012/06/sebastian-thrun-udacity-ceo-will.html

He is also interesting from due to a number of innovations he partook in that are likely to be pretty historical

Self-driving cars
Formation of Udacity is likely to be remembered as the "event that changed college-level online education"
I don't know how much he is responsible for this directly, but Google X is making headway with pretty futuristic HUD devices that are likely to significantly increase human-computer integration

Link to thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/v59z3/iam_sebastian_thrun_stanford_professor_google_x/

I was looking forward to this IAMA, but left feeling disappointed in having learned nothing worth remembering.

In summary: Almost every question directly concern products offered by Udacity. I guess this was my fault, and our fault, for not asking interesting and challenging questions. Some answers did offer shallow advice on succeeding in computer science and education. Almost every answer could have been penned by an intern at Udacity, or any reasonably experienced computer science professional. Udacity's marketing departement is the only winner here. This was a failed opportunity.