Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Learn About Game Theory and AI? 152
xmojox writes "I would like to learn more about Artificial Intelligence and Game Theory. I know these are both large areas of study; however, my main interest is in how these affect decisions in the world. This would include politicians, business people, and general society. I'm not looking for a career or anything; this is just a personal interest of mine. Where are good places to start in these areas for somebody new to them? I'm aware of the Stanford on-line classes, but those don't work with my current schedule."
Russell and Norvig (Score:3, Informative)
Grab a copy of Russell and Norvig. It's a nice survey, and a fairly easy read.
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No the correct answer is : "You want to learn the basics for no other use than misrepresenting it in political discussions ? Please don't."
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I do think that the interest of OP goes beyond the superficial coverage of these topics we often see in press and politics, and this is already made evident by the fact he came here to ask. Moreover, even a cursory read of the Russel-Norvig brings no risk of misrepresentation - that's exactly why I loved that book: clear language
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Good job on reading the entire summary!
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I found 'Rock, Paper Scissors' quite accessible (Score:1)
See: http://www.lenfisherscience.com/books/rock_paper_scissors.html
statistical decision theory (Score:5, Interesting)
-bone up on your probability (continuous/discrete distributions, transformations, etc)
-grab a book on statistical decision theory like Parmigiani and Inoue or Berger (85).
-read Von Neumann/Morgenstern
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Many years ago I read the book "Prisoner's Dilemma".
Interesting book with a bit of Game Theory and biography of Von Neumann.
Thought it interesting to note that my father's and Von Neumann's lives ever-so-slightly intersected at Operation Crossroads.
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Thought it interesting to note that my father's and Von Neumann's lives ever-so-slightly intersected at Operation Crossroads.
That's pretty cool! Never heard of Operation Crossroads before, but it sounds like it was the second nuclear test?
Re:statistical decision theory (Score:4, Interesting)
I have the Von Neumann/Morganstern book. It is very heavy reading, Rain-Man level stuff. Unless you're rich or its really cheap, it's a good idea to thumb through a copy before buying.
On the other [fuffy] end of the spectrum is Prisoner's Dilemma by William Poundstone. A 1-2 hour read suitable for teens, with no difficult math and a lot of real-world examples.
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The first chapters of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior is quite accesable, at least it was when I got my copy in high school. Do to be able to grasp the idea of a matrix.
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I'm under the impression that this is a legal source:
http://www.archive.org/details/theoryofgamesand030098mbp
Has pdf/epub/kindle/etc versions of NM. (As well as lots of other good reads!)
Re:Stanford AI and Game Theory? (Score:5, Informative)
Less Wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
I haven't had much time to dig in yet, but I hear good things about Less Wrong [lesswrong.com] from some friends who are into game theory, ai, and sociology.
Here's their front page blurb:
Thinking and deciding are central to our daily lives. The Less Wrong community aims to gain expertise in how human brains think and decide, so that we can do so more successfully. We use the latest insights from cognitive science, social psychology, probability theory, and decision theory to improve our understanding of how the world works and what we can do to achieve our goals.
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This fact gets conveniently left out
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Surely wins the Slashdot TinFoil Hat Post of the Year Award 2011?
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Right at the top of the page they have a line endorsing human rationality. Right next to that is a link to a singularity summit. There is no hint of irony in the juxtaposition. That's a big red flag right there.
How do they not work?? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm aware of the Stanford on-line classes, but those don't work with my current schedule
Why? You can just watch the videos instead of doing the homework, or watch them sometime later and do the homework then.
But if you really had any interest you would be shifting around everything else, including sleep, to take fullest advantage of these classes in real time.
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Its a good thing that everyone seems to be clairvoyant and understand how the OP *can* indeed fit it in to his current schedule when he says he can't. Maybe he has a 100 hour a week job, a demanding girlfriend, 200 kids or all three. ...and "interest" doesn't mean you give up sleep. Perhaps if he was interested in two things he should give up eating as well.
Reasonable question asked - with reasonable parameters - unreasonable dissection.
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demanding girlfriend - is that what the kids are calling xbox these days?
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I like how you sarcastically, and unintentionally, give the exact same answer! He doesn't work that long, have that many kids etc, and therefore COULD in fact find the time.
Another possibility is that there's no way for him to learn this stuff as there's no way of doing it without leaving the girlfriend, drowning some kids etc.
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ah that's because unlike the other posters I am in fact clairvoyant :)
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I'm interested in subject X, could you help out? I know that I could go google things, work through tutorials, and browse the communities that are dedicated to subject X, but I want your input. Also my schedule is pretty busy. So I'm looking for some way to spend zero time to get real meaningful advances.
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But if he has ANY time to learn something.. How would he by definition NOT have time to watch a video he can watch whenever he wants... but WOULD have time to read a book or something?
(The only reasonable case I can think of would be time on a subway or bus without a net connection -- I have no idea if the Stanford videos are downloadable to watch offline.)
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Anyone who has any interest but hasn't already looked into it themselves, is not going to be interested in getting up at 4am. Nor do I think it would do much use. Why, if you can watch the video?
Personally I wouldn't even bother with the videos, just read the book.. I might dig it out and see if it has any Lambda Calculus stuff - I'm about to go through Norvig's book on AI/Common Lisp.. and my memory of LC is really rusty.
Re:How do they not work?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? You can just watch the videos instead of doing the homework, or watch them sometime later and do the homework then.
Maybe xmojox isn't around a PC for hours, because of his/her job, and spend a few more hours commuting. Maybe he/she has no tablet that's easily carried. We are not to judge. If we don't believe what's telling us, we may as well think this question is just an attempt at trollling and stop wasting our times.
But if you really had any interest you would be shifting around everything else, including sleep, to take fullest advantage of these classes in real time.
Worst. Advice. Ever. If you don't sleep at least six hours, you'll notice. It isn't sustainable.
On topic: Check Wikipedia's page for Game Theory and go to the citations. There you'll find a few books and other resources you can read.
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Maybe xmojox isn't around a PC for hours, because of his/her job, and spend a few more hours commuting. Maybe he/she has no tablet that's easily carried. We are not to judge.
I am. I'm working 60+ hours a week, including weekends, and I'm taking the class.
I'm making the class work because I do have a deep interest in AI, but more importantly want the chance to ask questions from experts as I learn and see what other questions people ask while I learn, because I know this well help substantially with retentio
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An older version of the machine learning class videos actually given at Stanford is available here:
http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx [stanford.edu]
Despite the title saying "Machine Learning| Artificial Intelligence" it seems to be only the Machine Learning class.
That said, the AI class may be more useful for you unless you plan to do hardcore machine learning. The AI class seems to go over a broader set of machine learning topics than the ML class. I'm guessing the AI class will cover it's topics in less detail.
Take the class!!!! (Score:1)
Between work and other studying obligations (which my job depends on) ... I can't commit myself to that kind of structure.
Why not try? There is NO DOWNSIDE to signing up. It's free!!! You can see if there's any way to make it work. You can see if even the light version would work, or in fact if the topic really interests you after you see what it involves. The videos are put up once a week and you watch them whenever.
Why should you try? Because you will learn, and retain, much more if you are working
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Having actually taken both of the classes in question at Stanford I'd disagree. They're useful but it's not god shoving knowledge into your head. If you can learn from a book (seriously learn, not half ass it) then just go with that.
Plus, you can already get the machine learning class videos (and a few other ones):
http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx [stanford.edu]
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From the first link I got to this page [aaai.org] which has the delicious quote:
"we might want to stop thinking about jobs as the main aspect of our lives that we want to save. They may be a means, but they are not the ends."
Game Theory - The Great Courses (Score:3)
I purchased a course from "The Great Courses" on DVD last year (thegreatcourses.com), the topic of which was Game Theory. I've enjoyed the first half of the course, but haven't completed it. Unfortunately whenever I get time to go back to it, it has been long enough that I tend to start back at the beginning and watch the entire course over.
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These are awesome courses! Especially if you are new to the field. There are a couple of them that might interest you - the course on Game Theory, taught by a matemetician, focuses on the theory itself, although it gives some real life and historical scenarios of how game theory should be (or was) applied.
Then there is a course on Conflict Resolution which discusses a lot of the themes from Game Theory applied to real life and another course on Leadership that discusses a lot of historical examples of failu
perceptrons is a start (Score:2)
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don't kill me with -1 troll, it's a joke.
Slashdot should have a "just kidding" button, that will change your -5, troll to +5, funny.
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But then some asshat named Marvin would point out, in the most malicious way, how there can be no guarantee of linear separation between joke and troll...
readings (Score:1)
After you go thru the usual stuff (Intro to AI, on-line courses, et al)
Game Theory and Decision Theory in Agent-Based Systems ISBN 978-1-4020-7115-7
Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict ISBN 978-0674341166
Hope this helps.
Russell & Norvig (Score:5, Informative)
Read Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 3rd edition. It's supposedly the most-used AI textbook in the world.
It's weak on the biologically inspired methods (genetic algorithms, neural networks, fuzzy logic), but very solid in "Good Old Fashioned AI" (GOFAI) and some of the decision-making procedures from other fields such as economics.
If you don't have a background in CS, you'll need to work through a book on discrete math first.
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F.A. Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit" (Score:1)
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Maybe I'm off on a tangent or somewhere completely different alltogether, but...
How about decentralization of planning, too? If everyone that wanted to could be part of decision making. That would probably be the best and most democratic (obviously) way? In this age of the internet, it should not be that hard to implement technically, either.
AFAICS, the only reason not to increase democracy to an extreme is the possibility that democracy really isn't good for people. And even if that were true, it must stil
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"If everyone that wanted to could be part of decision making."
The bigger problem is all the people that don't want to be involved in planning, but want to remain employed/in good graces/not drawn outside the lines. Solve the organizational problem of perceived proximity to satisfaction and you might have a stab at making this work. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to make a human believe that the distance between current position and satisfaction is variable according to externally controlled factors. The distance is always equal to the duration of the urge, no m
The best way to learn is to do it (Score:4, Interesting)
The best way to learn is to do it. Choose a "game" and try to solve it with some different approaches. I say "game" with quotes because the game you pick should definitely not be a game which a normal adult would choose to play, but something very young children would play, or a heavily simplified variant of a full game. Something like Tic-Tac-Toe or RPS.
RPS seems trivial, but it's actually a very interesting game to study. It's an easy-to-understand example of how a Nash equilibrium strategy doesn't always produce an optimal outcome. The equilibrium strategy is to choose between the three moves at random, but you can't naively use the strategy because it offers no way of taking advantage of weak opponents, such as an opponent that favors a particular move or a pattern of moves. Computer RPS tournaments will always include a variety of bots that are predictably weak in various ways, to separate out the good bots that are capable of using these weaknesses.
Another simple game you could experiment with is Leduc Poker. Leduc Poker is another matrix game, and it's simple enough that you can easily compute the Nash equilibrium (which, remember, is not necessarily optimal, but it's a good starting point) or iterate over the entire game tree. You could also use a similar subset of poker to experiment with more advanced techniques - e.g. minimax and alphabeta pruning, or maybe Monte Carlo Tree Search (I can't guarantee that MCTS would work for poker, I'm not sure it's ever been done, but it might be interesting to try.)
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The problem with tackling AI is in fact everything you were talking about. Pick a simple game, write a player for it, etc, where the answer is nearly always some form of tree search leveraging hard-coded knowledge (chess-like) or simple Bayesian derivations using hard-coded knowledge (poker-like.) While that stuff (and path finding) is the mainstay of popularized AI, its both limiting and non-inte
One thing is for certain. (Score:3)
Some think that artificial intelligence seeks to emulate the real intelligence of humans. But most of it is just software, and has little to do with real intelligence.
There are certain problems that AI can solve, but those solutions are not "intelligent" but rather are merely "formulas" programmed by intelligent people (computer scientists).
We get excited when these formulas emulate what a real person might do, and when we can hide the underlying machine, but that is not to say we know how people think or even how we are implemented. We are just getting better at programming.
There are some great advancements in cognitive science, and the more we discover about how the brain works, the less it looks like it could be run by any "code". No intel inside. The brain is an organ that grows and dies, and takes its memories with it. If anything, it programs itself.
That is not to say there haven't been advancements in AI. It too is incredibly useful.
A good place to start: ... and wikipedia of course...
http://www.ted.com/search?q=brain [ted.com]
http://www.ted.com/search?q=artificial+intelligence [ted.com]
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Software can emulate anything. A good example may be video games. Software can create gravity and realistic 3D environments and everything else, but that isn't to say anything that it creates is itself "software". AI is the same.
There is no real gravity in the computer, and the computer doesn't create real gravity.
There is no real intelligence in the computer, and the computer doesn't create real intelligence.
Computer running software may be a good analogy to the brain running whatever it runs. But it is on
You might try Economics instead. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to belittle your choices, but this is a VERY complicated subject. My favorite introductions to game theory are, "The Compleat Strategyst" by Williams, and, "Strategy in Poker, Business and War" by McDonald. These are not trivial books, but they are easy reads into the uses of Game Theory.
After that, you get into some Math. Read anything you can on Probability and Risk; know your Statistics and Calculus. Much of what you are looking for will be found under the subject "Decision Theory."
I say study Economics because this is where political and economic scientific thought is making the greatest gains at this time. Game theory has a lot to do with "payoff" and Economics is a fertile field for studying payoffs. (So is Political Science, and there some good laboratories in, say, Afghanistan, Mexico and Chicago. But that's a slightly different, pragmatic, field of study.)
My favorite definition of "politics" is: "The behavior of vying for scarce rewards." This is almost exactly a definition for Economics. At one time Economics was thought to be a sub-level of politics; it now seems the opposite is true.
Hayak pretty much proved that economic behavior cannot be quantified because of the complexity. What is useful is deriving principles of actions under a variety of conditions to provide maximum payoffs, for the most people, under the widest variety of conditions. (An alternative course is to try to derive the largest payoffs for the fewest people under specific conditions.) AutoDesk used to have an Artificial Life laboratory that you could manipulate to learn about Genetic Algorithms and other AI behavior. Context-dependent AI can be learned through developing Neural Nets. Some of the guys I've talked to at Carnegie Mellon in the Quantitative Economics studies have warring economic artificial hybrid GA/Neural Nets, and the observations are pretty interesting.
If it was simply a matter of rational decision making, optimum economic strategies could probably be described and tested in a much smaller AI field. However, politics and economics are burdened with mis-perceptions, human values, and stubborn beliefs. This is a big field, and you should be able to enjoy it as a hobby for the rest of your life without running into a limit of learning.
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AI: Stanford (Score:1)
For AI, I would suggest enrolling into the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Course [ai-class.com]. It will start on October 10th this year and lasts until December (I think).
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"I would like to learn more about Artificial Intelligence and Game Theory. I know these are both large areas of study; however, my main interest is in how these affect decisions in the world. This would include politicians, business people, and general society. I'm not looking for a career or anything; this is just a personal interest of mine. Where are good places to start in these areas for somebody new to them? I'm aware of the Stanford on-line classes, but those don't work with my current schedule."
Reply
For AI, I would suggest enrolling into the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Course. It will start on October 10th this year and lasts until December (I think).
Good old slashdot, where reading the question asked before answering is just too damn much trouble.
Braitenburg and Dawkins (Score:2)
First, read up on Braitenburg Vehicles [wikipedia.org] and The Selfish Gene [wikipedia.org], by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is something of a deity in the annals of evolutionary biology and is worthy of worship :-p
Then read up on Neural Networks [wikipedia.org], start simple with a feed-forward with error backprop.
Then try your hand at some Temporal Difference Learning [wikipedia.org].
Then take a look at genetic algorithms [wikipedia.org], but it might help you to first understand the classic A* heuristic search algorithm [wikipedia.org]. Genetic algorithms tend to be interesting search algorithms that
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Genetic algorithms tend to be interesting search algorithms that are inspired by a genetic process, but they have little connection to the actual biological process for which they are named, so I am biased against them. This perception could just be a local cognitive minima that might be avoided with better training.
Just stop using the name 'genetic algorithm' when thinking about them.
Begin with a straightforward randomized state-space search method, simply remember the candidate solution with the best score. How can that be improved upon? We could keep a record of many of these randomized candidate solutions and their scores and derive new candidates using various methodologies, such as combining parts of two different candidates into a new candidate and then randomizing only minor parts of these new candidates. We
Will Chris Crawford's Tomes Help? (Score:2)
Not knowing exactly what level of knowledge you're starting from... One of my first game purchases was Patton Versus Rommel, which included some artificial smarts. The liner notes included a reference to his second book The Art of Computer Design [wikipedia.org], [PDF [google.com]] and based on the context, I hoped it might include at least introductory pointers to game AI. Nope. There's also Chris Crawford on Game Design [wikipedia.org], [Google Books [google.com]]. It does include some high level designs, which may or may not be what you're looking for.
Open Online Courses (Score:2)
Happy studying.
Book (Score:1)
May I suggest the following book:
Multiagent Systems
Algorithmic, Game-Theoretic, and Logical Foundations
Yoav Shoham
Stanford University
Kevin Leyton-Brown
University of British Columbia
http://www.masfoundations.org/index.html
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Game Theory: A Critical Introduction (Score:4)
If you really have no patience for philosophy, try Game Theory for Applied Economists by Robert Gibbons instead. ;-)
John Maynard Smith's Evolution and the Theory of Games is accessible and indispensable.
Less technical works that explore the implications of the theory in fascinating ways include The Evolution of Cooperation (the book that first got me interested in the subject) and The Complexity of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod, and anything by Brian Skyrms.
Yale course "Game Theory" on Youtube (Score:3)
Here is the complete Youtube playlist for the Yale course "Game Theory", lectured by Ben Polak. 24 lectures in total, about 1 h 15 min each.
Course description: This course is an introduction to game theory and strategic thinking. Ideas such as dominance, backward induction, Nash equilibrium, evolutionary stability, commitment, credibility, asymmetric information, adverse selection, and signaling are discussed and applied to games played in class and to examples drawn from economics, politics, the movies, and elsewhere.
I have had the intention of watching through this, but haven't had the time after the first few lectures. The material is recommended, though.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6EF60E1027E1A10B [youtube.com]
Good game theory books I keep on my shelf: (Score:4, Informative)
Good game theory books I keep on my shelf:
Nonlinear Dynamics, Mathematical Biology, and Social Science (Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity Lecture Notes)
by Joshua Epstein
Westview Press
ISBN: 9780201419887
(if you know enough math for partial differential equations, this book is a must-have, since it's directly applicable to mathematically modelling open source software projects)
The Evolution of Cooperation
by Robert Axelrod and William D. Hamilton
Paper: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.147.9644&rep=rep1&type=pdf [psu.edu]
Book: ISBN 0-465-02122-2
Perspectives on Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems
Basic Books
ISBN: 9780195162929
The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration
by Robert Axelrod
Princeton University Press
ISBN 978-0691015675
Game Theory and the Social Contract, Vol. 1: Playing Fair
by Ken Binmore
MIT Press
ISBN 978-0262023634
Game Theory and the Social Contract, Vol. 2: Just Playing (Economic Learning and Social Evolution)
by Ken Binmore
MIT Press
ISBN 978-0262024440
Analyzing Policy: Choices, Conflicts, and Practice
by Michael C. Munger
W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 978-0393973990
Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science from the Bottom Up (Complex Adaptive Systems
by Joshua M. Epstein, Robert L. Axtell
MIT Press
ISBN 978-0262550253
See also:
http://www.santafe.edu/ [santafe.edu]
http://www.youtube.com/user/santafeinst [youtube.com]
The Brookings Institute is also active in this area (it was their math that led most of the U.S. Cold War policy and kept everyone out of a nuclear exchange with the Soviets).
-- Terry
MIT's Open CourseWare (Score:2)
You're doing it wrong (Score:1)
I'll get shot down in flames for this, but it's a geek fallacy to think that you can understand "politicians, business people, and general society" through "Artificial Intelligence and Game Theory".
To understand politicians, study politics.
To understand business people, study business.
To understand society, study sociology.
Of course, to understand Artificial Intelligence and Game Theory, then study Artificial Intelligence and Game Theory.
A simple telephone call (Score:3)
The first rule of international manipulation is.. (Score:2)
D
Consciousness (Score:4, Insightful)
I haven't seen anyone post it yet, but if your interest is in human-like intelligence, read an AI critic like Searle.
Game theory (Score:3, Informative)
two MIT A.I. conferences this year (Score:3)
Go to yale! (Score:2)
Actually I am only half kidding! I was interested in this myself recently and found that there is a Yale proff teaching game theory that puts his lectures on youtube. I sat through two lectures on Nash Equilibrium a few months back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oASpaBdDMs [youtube.com]
Course it couldn't hurt to get a text book, but, it would be trivial to lookup the required books for these or other similar classes, and go buy them at any college book store. Just walk right in and buy them, or find them online.
Is it t
Not the same thing (Score:1)
The Compleat Strategyst [amazon.com] is an old but very good (not too mathematical) introduction to pure game theory.
Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays [amazon.com] is a great series of books on the mathematics of games.
For AI, see previous reco's. For my money you can't go wrong with Russel/Norvig, unless you are look
Deep Learning Tutorials (Score:2)
Try Stanford's online course (Score:2)
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Narrative on game theory (Score:1)
Multiagent systems (Score:1)
Just Wish (Score:1)
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AHAHAHAHA oh snap!
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One possibility here is of course that the original poster knows that the field is quite large and isn't interested in studying it intensely for several years. In that case it can be good to ask those who already have studied the field for pointers to figure out just which things are most essential to learn about, which books are likely to be most useful and such things. Basically, the original poster may just be trying to avoid wasting his/her time studying more or less irrelevant parts of the field (anyon
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If you don't understand the question, why the hell did you post an answer?
Mod: Troll
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In other words, you don't understand the whole point of slashdot. It's a discussion board.
DISCUSSION.
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