Finland Is Making Its Online AI Crash Course Free To the World (theverge.com) 18
Last year, Finland launched a free online crash course in artificial intelligence with the aim of educating its citizens about the new technology. Now, as a Christmas present to the world, the European nation is making the six week program available for anyone to take. The Verge reports: Strictly speaking, it's a present for the European Union. Finland is relinquishing the EU's rotating presidency at the end of the year, and decided to translate its course into every EU language as a gift to citizens. But there aren't any geographical restrictions as to who can take the course, so really it's to the world's benefit. The course certainly proved itself in Finland, with more than 1 percent of the Nordic nation's 5.5 million citizens signing up. The course, named Elements of AI, is currently available in English, Swedish, Estonian, Finnish, and German.
Crash course (Score:2)
Waymo devs rush to enrole.
Re: Crash course (Score:2)
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Waymo devs rush to enrole.
I have no doubt that Waymo devs/quants could teach a course or three on AI.
Go Finland! (Score:1)
Re:Finland isn't a Nordic nation (Score:5, Informative)
The term includes Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden,
Re: Finland isn't a Nordic nation (Score:3)
Re: Finland isn't a Nordic nation (Score:5, Informative)
The definition of "Scandinavia" is so arbitrary that it's pretty clear that it's just to rule out Finland and Iceland. If it's done based on geography (the Scandes, aka Scandinavian Mountains), then Denmark shouldn't be included as it's on the other side of the sea. If it's done based on the language, then at least Iceland should be included - and Finnish also has a significant portion of Swedish-speaking people; Swedish is also an official language in Finland. If it's done by history, then Finland and Iceland should be included as they have been a part of the same countries (Denmark-Norway-Iceland, and Sweden-Finland).
If you draw a Venn diagram of these, you'll notice that there's no way to define the Scandinavia by these properties in the way it's often defined (i.e., Denmark, Norway and Sweden).
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If it's done based on the language, then at least Iceland should be included
It's possible that people from Iceland will disagree with me, but honestly they don't belong. I'm Norwegian, I can understand Swedish quite well (Astrid Lindgren's stories made a huge impact on that) and Danish is okay even though it sounds like they're mumbling. The long unions with Denmark (1380-1814) and Sweden (1397-1523, 1814-1905) fused our languages much more than Iceland. As long as it's just Scandinavian people present we'll still do business meetings in our respective languages. Islandic? Not a ch
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Finnish also has a significant portion of Swedish-speaking people; Swedish is also an official language in Finland.
Last I recall (I left in 2012 lived there for 4 years for a job) it was only 5% and this was mostly only in the southern region and few western regions respectively. I cannot comment on the north. And even back then this was in decline. While you could register at the maistraatti (local magistrat) as a Swedish speaker most of official post would still be delivered in Finnish which for a non fluent Finnish speaker is a PITA. Point being, while Finland presents itself as dual speaking in reality it is not so
Marketers groan (Score:5, Insightful)
Marketing managers of tech companies around the world just gave out a collective groan. If the common man learns what is and what isnt AI no longer can they put artificial lipstick on an intelligent pig to sell their crap software
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It isn't so much what isn't as what developers are actually considering AI. These things would be more appropriately called something like "associative probability networks" we might have been inspired to come up with the model by looking at the brain and label some objects with the same name but they don't actually resemble a brain, have no self-awareness, or any kind of awareness. The input and output only becomes meaningful when viewed by human intelligence just like digital video is only video at all wh
When its free (Score:1)
No worries (Score:2)
As far as I can tell the course (at least for now) doesn't actually include any technical detail. It remains another version of the same high level "how neural nets work" tutorial you find everywhere.
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That said. They do have additional materials which are supposed to be planned.