Humans of SymSys: Sam Reamer

"[My classes] have helped me in that they have caused me to think more deeply about the world that I live in..."

Sam is a senior majoring in SymSys with an individually-designed concentration in the Artificial Intelligence and Logic.

Why did you decide to major in SymSys over related majors such as CS, linguistics, etc.?

I took CS 106a winter quarter freshman year and really liked it, so I knew I wanted to do more programming. I was debating doing CS and found that the department had a lot of requirements I didn’t want to fulfill. I really liked cognitive science from a class I had taken at UCLA when I was in high school. I also don’t consider myself a techie or a fuzzy, I really like both, and SymSys seemed like a perfect way to blend the two. I also liked how Symsys allowed for a lot of flexibility. I was also thinking of doing CS + X, but the unit count made it such that I would have had to take pretty much all my classes toward my major, rather than leaving room for the classes I wanted to take for fun.

How do you think your SymSys background has benefited you (in your current job, in the way you approach problems, etc.)? 

I don’t really view things in terms of how they’d benefit me. I don’t know if philosophy of mind will ever benefit me in the workplace, or if human behavioral biology will ever come into play in what I do professionally, but I think that they have helped me in that they have caused me to think more deeply about the world that I live in, and they have been enjoyable experiences.

What is the ‘must take’ class in the SymSys curriculum? ('must take' can mean favorite, most rewarding, etc.)

I think the most interesting class that I’ve taken at Stanford was Human Behavioral Biology. You learn a lot of cool anecdotes, and the professor is amazing — even though the class is pretty long. It’ll make you a more interesting dinner guest.

If you could have lunch with one faculty member associated with SymSys, who would it be and why? 

I feel like Ken Taylor would be an interesting dinner guest, even though I’ve only heard one lecture by him. The reason I’m not listing Robert Sapolsky is because you shouldn’t meet celebrities. I don’t know if who he is in person could live up to his performance in lecture.

When someone asks you “what is Symbolic Systems?” how do you usually reply? 

I think it depends on your concentration. I feel like my version of SymSys is cognitive science, but with more of a focus on computer science. In general, I think that SymSys is what you make of it.

Which subfield of SymSys (e.g. CS, linguistics, psychology, philosophy) were you least familiar with before declaring? Did anything surprise you?

I kind of had an idea of what all of them were before declaring, because I had taken a lot of classes before declaring. Coming into Stanford, I didn’t really have an idea of what CS was like, so I was most surprised by how interesting and fun programming can be. I definitely think CS has the most fun coursework.

If you could go back in time and be a Stanford student again, what would you have done differently and why?

I would have realized that classes can be a lot more fulfilling than they were in high school. I think that in high school, I supplemented a lot of classes with extracurriculars, but I think that you can have a fulfilled quarter by focusing on classes. In high school I wanted to be a part of everything, but in college, I think that you can benefit by taking the time to engage with the material.

Outside of SymSys-related topics, what else are you interested in?

I’m really interested in world mythology and reality television (especially Survivor).

Sam is one of many profiles featuring selected alumni, undergraduates and graduates who are involved in the Symbolic Systems community.

Humans of SymSys: Caroline Ho

"What ethical issues arise when developing intelligent/autonomous systems, and how should we address them? How can we build technologies which promote human autonomy, justice, and fairness? It is my hope that SymSys will help me build both the ethical/social foundation and technical background necessary to answer them..."

Caroline is a junior majoring in SymSys with an individually-designed concentration in the Ethics of Technology.

Introduce yourself: I'm a junior majoring in SymSys with a concentration in Ethics of Technology. On campus, I serve as the exec lead of Girls Teaching Girls to Code, a co-chair of HackOverflow (WiCS exec board), a peer counselor at the Bridge, and a VR programmer at the Virtual Human Interaction Lab. In my free time, I write a satire blog on tech/CS, go out to social dance events, take long walks around campus, participate in hackathons, and yell about AI ethics. Also, I made a meme about SymSys once.

What drew you to the SymSys major? Why did you pick SymSys as opposed to other (especially, related) majors?

I really love the breadth and flexibility of the SymSys major – as someone with interests in both tech and the humanities/social sciences, I was super excited about the fact that I could learn about areas of which I had no prior knowledge (i.e., psychology, neuroscience, linguistics) while going deeper into my personal areas of interest (i.e., computer science/AI, philosophy). Also, while this wasn't really a reason I chose the major, SymSys is basically the "meta-major": you get to think about the nature of thinking! How cool is that?

What is your concentration and why did you choose it?

When I first came to Stanford, I was deeply interested in political science and ethics, and while my passions may have shifted in a more technical direction, that hasn't changed. As a result, I've developed an individually designed concentration in Ethics of Technology, which will allow me to augment my CS coursework with classes providing a more critical lens on my technical interests. Since I'm currently planning to go into the tech industry, I figure it's my responsibility to ensure the products I build and algorithms I design are beneficial for society.

What’s your favorite SymSys-related class that you’ve taken so far?

I can't say enough good things about CS 103 – it's an incredibly well-taught course which made me fall in love with math again. Plus, you get to learn the mind-blowing philosophical/social/technological implications of the theoretical content you learn along the way. Want to know why you can never build a completely secure voting machine or whether we can prove all truths to be true? To find the answers to these questions (and more!), take CS 103.

Are you involved in research? If so, tell us about a project you are working on:

This year, I started working for the Virtual Human Interaction Lab through the Virtual Reality Intensive Training Seminar (VRITS), which has been a very "SymSys" experience since the lab combines elements of CS and psychology in its research. Currently, I'm programming the environment for a study on how various VR experiences impact people's emotions.

What is one piece of advice you'd like to offer to younger students?

Explore as much as you can, and don't be afraid to dive into subjects you know nothing about! While this definitely relates to SymSys, you should take it more broadly as well – there's so many amazing fields of study at Stanford that probably weren't offered at your high school, so why limit yourself to the ones you're familiar with?

What underlying questions and issues do you hope to tackle/learn more about through SymSys?

As an aspiring AI ethicist and engineer, I'm interested in a couple questions in particular: 1) What ethical issues arise when developing intelligent/autonomous systems, and how should we address them? 2) How can we build technologies which promote human autonomy, justice, and fairness? It is my hope that SymSys will help me build both the ethical/social foundation and technical background necessary to answer them.

Caroline is one of many profiles featuring selected alumni, undergraduates and graduates who are involved in the Symbolic Systems community.
 

Humans of SymSys: Matthew Libby

"I'm really interested in the ways that emerging tech, the human brain, and art can interact. Tech has already revolutionized everything from film to music to sculpture -- but what happens when those human-computer artistic teams become more computer than human?"

Matthew is a recent grad who majored in Symbolic Systems with a concentration in Cognitive Science and a strong interest in the arts.

Introduce yourself: I graduated from Stanford in June, and am now living in Los Angeles. On campus, I acted and directed for Shakes, worked on Gaieties, was a tour guide, and RA'ed in Burbank. These days, I'm pursuing a career in the film industry.

What drew you to the SymSys major? Why did you pick SymSys as opposed to other (especially, related) majors?

I've always been someone who loved both STEM and the humanities. Though I've wanted to work in the arts professionally as long as I can remember, I loved taking math classes and others that are more analytic in nature. I knew I wanted to continue that at Stanford -- and in SymSys I found a program that combined subjects I was interested in, in ways that I knew would satiate my intellectual curiosity.

What’s your favorite SymSys-related class that you’ve taken so far?

Human Behavioral Biology with Robert Sapolsky was my favorite class I took at Stanford, period. Not only was the material fascinating, but it exemplified the interdisciplinary mindset that made me enjoy SymSys so much: in that class, looking at a subject from multiple points of view gave me a clearer sense of the subject than looking at it from just one would have.

Are you involved in research? If so, tell us about a project you are working on:

I never did research in the SymSys department, but my senior year I participated in the Arts Institute's Honors in the Arts program, where I wrote a full-length stage play for my thesis. The play was about artificial intelligence, namely artificial creativity, and speculates a future in which we can't tell human art from machine art. I did a lot of research for the project -- mostly into Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), which are super cool -- and my SymSys education was instrumental into creating it.

What underlying questions and issues do you hope to tackle/learn more about through SymSys?

As my thesis might indicate, I'm really interested in the ways that emerging tech, the human brain, and art can interact. Tech has already revolutionized everything from film to music to sculpture -- but what happens when those human-computer artistic teams become more computer than human?

What’s the coolest (loosely) SymSys-related topic that you’re excited about right now?

With all my newfound time post-graduation, I recently started reading Douglas Hofstadter's insane 750-page opus Gödel, Escher, Bach. It's a great SymSys supplement if you have the time to dig into it!

Matthew is one of many profiles featuring selected alumni, undergraduates and graduates who are involved in the Symbolic Systems community.

Coffee chats: Chris Piech

Coffee chats: Judith Degen

Judith Degen, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, spoke with us on Thursday about her research in psycholinguistics, semantics, and pragmatics, her advice for those interested in graduate school, and the value of “taking joy in the discovery process.” 

Professor Degen’s current research investigates questions of how speakers decide what to say when, and how listeners know exactly what they mean by “reading between the lines” over the course of a conversation. She integrates computational modeling approaches with methods in psycholinguistics in order to form a more complete picture of how listeners make pragmatic inferences both correctly and quickly. She also teaches at both the graduate and undergraduate level about the theory and methods of psycholinguistics. 

Before becoming the director of the interActive Language Processing Lab at Stanford (ALPS), she was a postdoctoral researcher in Noah Goodman’s CoCoLab at Stanford. She has lived all over the world, from South America to Europe to upstate New York, and stressed to us the importance of taking opportunities to study and live abroad. 

When asked about what tips she had for surviving graduate school, Degen shared stories of her time as a graduate student at the University of Rochester, where she made lifelong friends and learned how to become comfortable with being wrong. She also talked about celebrating the small victories and how it is inadvisable to go to graduate school just for the sake of getting a doctorate. 

Towards the end of the afternoon the conversation took a turn towards questions related to how to choose a major of study, the serendipity that plays a part in that decision, and the necessity of taking advantage of the large variety of classes that Stanford has to offer. Specifically, Dr. Degen emphasized that while technical skill is extremely valuable, in order to build a more well-rounded world view, an education in the humanities is indispensable. 

Written by Pratyusha Javangula