By Donald Marron, Christian Science Monitor
Former Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun has already taught a class of 160,000. Now he’s aiming to teach 500,000 students. Sound impossible? Well, he’s already taught a class of 160,000 students. As Felix Salmon recounts: Thrun told the story of his Introduction to Artificial Intelligence class, which ran from October to December last year. It started as a way of putting his Stanford course online — he was going to teach the whole thing, for free, to anybody in the world who wanted it. With quizzes and grades and a final certificate, in parallel with the in-person course he was giving his Stanford undergrad students. He sent out one email to announce the class, and from that one email there was ultimately an enrollment of 160,000 students.
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