Data Science in Context by Spector, Norvig, Wiggins, and Wing. (Recommended by Ben Fried.)
How the US hacked ISIS What is the name of your pet? 1-2-5-7
I have an unusual interdisciplinary project in need of a computer scientist interested in language. I am interested in documenting and studying the evolution and phases of the first 3,000 of real estate as an asset. i.e. from 3,000 BCE up to year 0. I’ve been corresponding with assyriologists and have good connections there, but the main approach will be to use two large digital libraries: the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative and the https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/ and the Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts (BDTNS) http://bdtns.filol.csic.es/index.php?p=about#nullI believe I can access both of these, which have different levels of transcription/translation. Some fraction of the tablets are transcribed into roman character representations of cuneiform and are thus able to be ROUGHLY translatable with Chat GPT. Relying on Assyriologists I plan to search and categorize this sub-set into sales, rents, foreclosures, land taxes, urban, rural etc. to understand property investment. They can also work with a computer scientist to refine the translations. A computer scientist with skills in modern embedding methods can likely design search algorithms to use translated documents to identify untranslated property-related documents to enlarge the sample.
Next, many of the documents have the cuneiform text represented graphically, so pattern-recognition programs should be feasible. Finally, there are a large number of documents that have high-quality photographs, graphic representation and translation which could be used to train a tool for reading from the photographs.
Some of the interesting challenges are due to the temporal and geographical variation in language, however I expect to have some excellent guidance on this front from assyriologists & aumerologists, so this would be an interesting, interdisciplinary project that links language, computer science and economics. There is a current literature on machinelearning techniques for reading the 3-D cuneiform as well, so the potential to start from some known methods.
My question: who best at Yale to approach about this project – either as someone I can hire or as a potential research collaborator? I figure as an out-of-the-box thinker you might have a good idea.
This is required of group projects.
We observe that Senators and Supreme Court justices often give explanations or opinions that hide or obscure their real reasons. That is, they lie. Should a computer lie? or more realistically, When should a computer lie? We call your attention to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
There is a new discussion topic: when should a computer lie?
Are These 10 Lies Justified? from The New York Times, December 14, 2015. Using polleverywhere, list which of the ten lies from the NYT article you believe justified. https://pollev.com/slade
See GBDMResources.html Chapter 4: Resources.
See GBDMResources.html Chapter 5: Relationships.