Stanford's online Machine Learning class now open for enrollment

http://www.ml-class.org/course/auth/welcome

by roger_lee • 15 years ago

192 41 15 years ago

ml-class.org

mattdeboard• 15 years ago

Just registered for this and looking forward to getting rolling.

Sargis• 15 years ago

How difficult would this be for someone with minimal linear algebra knowledge?

dpeck• 15 years ago

From the course page:

No particular math background is assumed, and we will go over the math concepts you need in the first couple of weeks.

Homunculiheaded• 15 years ago

However pretty early in the lectures they jump right into taking partial derivatives of matrices for calculating gradient descent. I think by 'no particular math background' they mean 'assuming nothing more than single and basic multivariable calculus plus linear algebra'. If your linear algebra and/or multi-variable calculus are weak/fuzzy (as they are for me) I think those sections will take quite a while to really understand.

edtechre2• 15 years ago

The course has some introductory Linear Algebra videos posted.

I don't think you'd be able to understand multiple regression without some basic knowledge of linear algebra.

samuel• 15 years ago

Look for yourself:

http://openclassroom.stanford.edu/MainFolder/CoursePage.php?...

The reference course on Stanford is CS229A instead of CS229, which is much lighter on Math. I have watched the videos on Linear and Logistic regression and the hardest derivations are elided, while the emphasis is put on intuitions.

Tycho• 15 years ago

Am I likely to learn anything of immediate practical benefit on this course? I'm not a computer scientist, just someone who writes lots of scripts to work with Unix/Excel/RDBMS/XML for a finance company.

(not that this would discourage me from taking the course, I'm just curious whether it will give me some new tools on my swiss-army-knife of programming knowledge, for my day job)

silentbicycle2• 15 years ago

For a quick overview of some machine learning fundamentals, you could check out Hilary Mason's "An Introduction to Machine Learning with Web Data" (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920017493.do) videos. They cover classification & clustering, with theory and a quick intro to some relevant Python libraries.

For your purposes, one potential use could be combing through lots of financial data for transactions that look unusual. (Another very common use for classification is spam filtering.)

seancron• 15 years ago

I'd also recommend Programming Collective Intelligence (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596529321.do) which is filled with lots of python code showing how different algorithms and techniques can be used.

gms• 15 years ago

It won't.

rcavezza• 15 years ago

I have a business background and I taught myself to code after getting involved in startups. I'm in the middle of deciding whether it is worth it to go back to school and get a master's degree in computer science. I hope this course will help me make that decision.

amirmc2• 15 years ago

Just as a reminder for folks, there's a spreadsheet of HN readers who are taking part in the classes at http://bit.ly/pLCRzg

There are 120+ HNers on there so you might find folks nearby you'd like to get in touch with.

Edit: Obviously, if you're doing any of the courses feel free to add your details too

gnok• 15 years ago

Somewhat disappointed after realizing that the videos are all in Flash. So I can't watch this on my iPad. Does anyone know if these exact videos are also available on iTunes U?

bradly• 15 years ago

Here are some download links: http://www.reddit.com/r/mlclass/comments/kgbsq/headsupagainn...

gvkalra• 15 years ago

The links on reddit are old (as clarified here: http://www.ml-class.org/course/qna/view?id=8)

There is a work around to do this (am not sure how ethical this is). Since it works am sharing the same.

1. Disable Flash in your browser (preferably use FF) 2. View video in HTML 5 mode (ex. http://www.ml-class.org/course/video/html5embed?videoid=1) 3. Right click on the video frame and select "Show only this frame" 4. Right click on the frame and select "Download with DownThemAll" ...

Required: DownThemAll FF addon ....

vl3• 15 years ago

I wonder if taking both ai-class.org and ml-class.org is going to be too much load for a person who is working full-time and if they are going to cover a lot of the same topics or not? Does anyone have an insight?

jzawodn• 15 years ago

I wonder the same and am having a tough time deciding which to take (or both).

vl3• 15 years ago

For now I signed up for both: if it will consume too much time I can drop one of them later, keeping more interesting one.

webspiderus4• 15 years ago

for what it's worth, if you take the ML class, you will learn most of the things you would learn in the AI class and more - although it does get a bit rigorous, and will take more time than the AI class would. from personal experience, I feel like Ng's class gave me a more thorough foundation in the math behind the concepts, and was more challenging to boot - so I'd recommend it if you're feeling up for it.

sandGorgon• 15 years ago

here's a post on the topic from reddit

http://www.reddit.com/r/mlclass/comments/krg3p/whats_the_dif...

edtechre2• 15 years ago

Same here. I'm thinking ML since it will have programming exercises. I'd likely forget all of the theory otherwise.

vl3• 15 years ago

Interesting point.

http://www.ai-class.com/overview says: "Programming is not required, however we believe it will be very helpful for some of the homework assignments. You may write code in any language you would like to (we recommend Python if you are new to programming) and your code will not be graded. For example, a question might ask for 6 answers to the same problem but with varied inputs or parameters. You are welcome to work each one out by hand, however writing a program might be both faster and give you a better understanding of how the algorithm works."

So there will be at least some programming, they got me confused - how is it possible to teach AI without programming? :) But we'll see.

webspiderus4• 15 years ago

For what it's worth, most of the programming in the ML class when I took it last year was MATLAB based - since it mostly involved lots of linear algebra, and using MATLAB meant you got matrix operations for free. AI class, on the other hand, involved coding an increasingly more intelligent Pacman agent in Python as we learned new approaches to optimizing reward.

Having said that, taking ML definitely made my theory stronger - but this was mostly due to the amount of proofs in the class, and not so much the programming :)

jorgeortiz85• 15 years ago

I don't know if the online classes will cover the same, less, or more material than the equivalent classes at Stanford. However, if they cover the same material, both classes combined are about half of a full-time student's workload in terms of academic units, but SUBSTANTIALLY more than half of a full-time's student's workload in terms of effort/hours. The material is difficult and the assignments are challenging. Expect to spend 10-20 hours of intensive work per week on each class.

webspiderus4• 15 years ago

I took the ML class in Autumn quarter and the AI class in Winter quarter of last year, there is definitely a lot of overlap - although to that extent, it might make it easier since you won't have two disjoint topic sets to study.

ML definitely goes into more mathematical rigor, while AI tends to cover a wide range of topics in enough depth to know when to apply them and how to interpret results.

younata• 15 years ago

Excellent.

It'll be interesting to see how this and the ai-class will affect my performance in my other classes.

yeison• 15 years ago

Stanford rocks! The timing of this is so convenient. I started watching the 2009 lectures from Professor Ng's Machine Learning class just last week.

Tombar• 15 years ago

It'll be cool if they provide a link to download video lectures, my internet connection fails randomly and its hard to watch the videos smoothly ;S

knarf55• 15 years ago

Great news. Will be enrolling to check this out.

wyclif• 15 years ago

Anybody taking the databases class that starts on Oct. 10th?

amirmc2• 15 years ago

See the spreadsheet at http://bit.ly/pLCRzg

HSO• 15 years ago

Perhaps this is the place and occasion to ask this question:

What's the advantage of taking this class over reading a good (text)book incl. exercises contained therein?

I realize people have different learning styles and I'm just not the type who learns well from listening. Still, even though I hated going to classes in school and university, I'm tempted by these offerings (AI, ML, DB). Perhaps I'm just looking for an excuse.

So, anyone here who can give some good reasons for why taking this course is better than (or adds to) a "mere" book?

pakitan• 15 years ago

I, too, am of the the type that learns better by reading, rather than listening but this format provides some additional "incentives" for the hardcore procrastinator who plans to read that AI textbook "later". Most important of all, if you want to complete the course, you're forced to follow a schedule and there are no excuses. Then there is the "reward" factor - you'll be getting a certificate and also all students are ranked based on their exam scores = you'll be motivated to work harder. Last but not least, the instructors will answer student questions about the course material. That's not something you can get from a book.

These are the reasons why I signed up.

stonemetal• 15 years ago

I can't think of many hard benefits, but several soft benefits. Being able to ask questions is the only hard benefit I can think of.

Deadlines and expectations might help motivate rather than that book siting on the shelf. You get a fancy piece of paper that lists your "grade" when you are done(achievement might motivate some). I have to admit the main draw (over a book) for me is curiosity about one of the nation's best CS programs and how it compares to the mid-west commuter college I went to.

Tichy• 15 years ago

Any ideas what the actual schedule will be? Like specific times when new videos go online, how much time will there be to hand in each exercise? I'd like to plan my time... Same questions for AI-Class.

Benjo• 15 years ago

There's an unanswered question on this in the class's internal forum: http://www.ml-class.org/course/qna/view?id=17

Stanford's online Machine Learning class now open for enrollment

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