halatmitdotedu

The danger with leaving decisions to computer algorithms is that the algorithms are too often "black boxes", largely because the software is proprietary. People don't have the opportunity to examine them and understand why they produce the results they do. This is already a worrisome trend, and it is increasing. Transparency is a good thing, and we are losing it because of proprietary software.

I've wanted to get back to doing elementary education for a long time. It's only recently that I was able to do this, through App Inventor and teach kids about mobile apps.

@kamala: funny you should mention that. We're working on it with Lyn Turbak and Wellesley and one of this students. It's something we want to do. I can't give and ETA because it's complicated: you want to arrange things so that you can translate back and forth between blocks and text.

Free software is about freedom, and yes, that same philosophy extends to copyrights and patents and so on. The basic point is that innovation and reuse is hobbled and restricted by government granted monopolies. that's what these things are: monopolies.

I'll answer for me and Chirs can answer for him. I'm most proud of the work I did in university computer science education and the book I wrote with Gerry Sussman, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. It articulated an "AI based approach" to CS education that had not been done before, and has had a lot of influence.