Gregory Gelfond's Personal Webpage

A (Likely) Heterodox View of the AI Landscape

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

There is a great deal of confusion, among the general public as well as within the AI community, about what is meant by the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’. In this essay, I attempt to present my own, (likely heterodox) view on Artificial Intelligence as a scientific discipline, an overview of what I see as its major subdisciplines (and their challenges), and what (despite their differences) they may have in common moving forward.

The Beauty and Utility of Simple Problems

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As a field of scientific inquiry, Computing Science is unique in its scope and interconnectedness with other disciplines. This breadth however often makes it difficult for faculty to form a coherent narrative, making the curriculum seem like an archipelago of unrelated subjects in the eyes of students. In this essay, I present two problems that provide a gateway for exploring very diverse and deep questions that are at the core of our discipline: recognizing integers, and the concordance problem.

Computing Science and the Western Tradition

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

What is meant by the terms computing science and software engineering? For that matter, what do we mean by science and engineering more generally? How are these two disciplines related, and how do they fit in to the broader tradition of western thought?

Teaching Statement

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Computer Science, or Computing Science as the late Edsger Dijkstra called it, is unique among the sciences. It has a complex nature, being both a scientific and an engineering discipline. It contains within it the practice of programming, which in addition to being a rigorous mathematical and engineering endeavor, is also an art akin to poetry or literature. In my teaching I strive to do justice to each of these aspects.

About

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve always found it a bit difficult to write about myself, but here we go. I’m currently a Senior AI Research Software Engineer at the University of Dayton Research Institute. By itself, that doesn’t really say much. If I drill down a bit further, I’m a specialist in knowledge representation generally, and the application of answer set programming towards that end in particular. Again, that may tell the you what it is that I currently do in my professional life, but that’s about it. I suspect that if you’re reading my essays, then you are more likely interested in the answer to the question of “why?”.