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Patrick Winston was easily my favorite professor. He took a special interest in everyone he met, and was also a great storyteller. On the first day of the firs

Patrick Winston was easily my favorite professor. He took a special interest in everyone he met, and was also a great storyteller. On the first day of the first class I took with him, I sat down in the front row. I'd never met him before, but he greeted me by name and asked me how I was doing. Apparently he'd taken the time to memorize everyone's name and face before the semester started, even though he had at least 60 or 70 students in that particular lecture. (I was profoundly embarrassed when I fell asleep in the front row about 30 minutes later, but hey, I wasn't getting a lot of sleep in those days. I did the same at a Noam Chomsky lecture around the same time.) Later, I took a much smaller grad class with Prof Winston that had maybe 15 people in it. We spent half the time reading and discussing great AI papers. On other days we'd just listen to fascinating stories he'd tell about Marvin Minsky, Carl Sagan, his time in the navy, dinner parties he'd been to with famous politicians, etc. He always took the time to distill some sage wisdom or advice from his experiences, too. It was the only class I never missed in my four years at MIT. RIP Patrick Winston.

proverbialbunny 7y ago
>Later, I took a much smaller grad class with Prof Winston that had maybe 15 people in it. We spent half the time reading and discussing great AI papers. Is by any chance this recorded anywhere? I loved his AI class (MIT 6.034). He was one of my favorite teachers too. (Though OCW on my end.)
- kennethfriedman 7y ago
  Unfortunately the grad class he taught was not recorded, because it was a seminar. Although the readings & assignments are available on class website: https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/index.html https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/index.html
  - proverbialbunny 7y ago
    Oh gosh this looks way better than I thought it would be, but that's Winston for you. I dearly miss him, and am not a fan of the new MIT Data Science classes. (I work as a Data Scientist.) It feels like the philosophy and fun has been dried out into a terse brick of knowledge, making modern MIT more like the universities that copy it, instead of something fun and exciting. I'm seeing if I can create an ad hock study group where we'll read the published articles and come up with our own conclusions. Sadly, it will not be the same, but I'm a big fan of Hofstadter and exploration of human consciousness, so I'll do my best to filling the shoes of a giant.

proverbialbunny 7y ago

>Later, I took a much smaller grad class with Prof Winston that had maybe 15 people in it. We spent half the time reading and discussing great AI papers. Is by any chance this recorded anywhere? I loved his AI class (MIT 6.034). He was one of my favorite teachers too. (Though OCW on my end.)

kennethfriedman 7y ago
Unfortunately the grad class he taught was not recorded, because it was a seminar. Although the readings & assignments are available on class website: https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/index.html https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/index.html
- proverbialbunny 7y ago
  Oh gosh this looks way better than I thought it would be, but that's Winston for you. I dearly miss him, and am not a fan of the new MIT Data Science classes. (I work as a Data Scientist.) It feels like the philosophy and fun has been dried out into a terse brick of knowledge, making modern MIT more like the universities that copy it, instead of something fun and exciting. I'm seeing if I can create an ad hock study group where we'll read the published articles and come up with our own conclusions. Sadly, it will not be the same, but I'm a big fan of Hofstadter and exploration of human consciousness, so I'll do my best to filling the shoes of a giant.