3 - The Bottom of the Bowl Flashcards
(82 cards)
Who was Bernard Widrow?
A young academic at Stanford University in the autumn of 1959.
What was the focus of Widrow’s work?
Adaptive filters and the use of calculus to optimize them.
Who is Marcian ‘Ted’ Hoff?
A graduate student who approached Widrow for discussion.
What significant algorithm did Widrow and Hoff invent?
The least mean squares (LMS) algorithm.
What is the LMS algorithm foundational for?
Training artificial neural networks.
Where did Widrow grow up?
A small town in Connecticut.
What did Widrow’s father do for a living?
Ran an ice-manufacturing plant.
What did Widrow initially want to be when he grew up?
An electrician.
What subtle course correction did Widrow’s father suggest?
To become an electrical engineer instead of an electrician.
Where did Widrow obtain his degrees?
MIT.
What workshop did Widrow attend in the summer of 1956?
A workshop on artificial intelligence at Dartmouth College.
Who is credited with coining the term ‘artificial intelligence’?
John McCarthy.
What was the main goal of the Dartmouth Summer Research Project?
To explore how machines can simulate aspects of learning and intelligence.
What did Widrow conclude after six months of thinking about thinking?
It would take twenty-five years to build a thinking machine with the technology of that time.
What did Widrow turn his attention to after abandoning plans for a thinking machine?
Adaptive filters that could learn to remove noise from signals.
Who developed the theory that Widrow was particularly interested in?
Norbert Wiener.
What is the goal of an adaptive filter?
To learn from its mistakes and improve over time.
What does the mean squared error (MSE) measure?
The average of the squares of the errors made by the filter.
What mathematical method is used to minimize the mean squared error?
The method of steepest descent.
What does the term ‘gradient’ refer to in calculus?
The slope of a function at a given point.
What is the derivative of the function y = x^2?
2x.
What is the purpose of differential calculus?
To calculate the slope of a continuous function.
At what point is the slope of a function typically zero?
At the minimum of the function.
What is the method of steepest descent also known as?
The method of gradient descent.