Brian Christian

Marriage as ‘Optimal Stopping Problem’ and Other Algorithms to Live By

1. You’re a psychologist who uses mathematical models and “big data” to understand how people think. Why not use traditional methods, such as lab experiments?

From the Fall 2016 The Greatest Show On Earth issue of California.

The Bot Versus the Bard: Researchers Teach a Computer to Write Poetry

What’s in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit

King of hell no quarrel have I left thee
No lovely maid who gleaned in fields or skies

One pair of lines above is the work of Shakespeare. The other was written by a computer. Can you tell which is which?

Posted on August 30, 2016 - 12:54pm

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In Swift Justice: The Historic Fight for Gender Equality at Berkeley Law: The article on the denial of tenure to Eleanor Swift and Marjorie Shultz at the law school, though it evidently ended happily, was...

— Ron Sipherd :: 11/6/2020 9:56am

In Will This Pandemic Ever End?: Powerful, sobering, informative. Sad to read but good to know

— Tom Abate :: 10/27/2020 9:31pm

In You Should Know About Ida Jackson: I’m one of those Black students who benefited from Ida Jackson’s bequest to Berkeley, now a professor in the State University of New York system. This piece put such a smile on my face.

— Kathleen :: 10/8/2020 6:52pm

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