More than one hundred thousand people have subscribed to open classes in artificial intelligence.

The news that the first full course of the Stanford Academy will be available on the Internet has become viral. During the week more than one hundred thousand people from all over the world subscribed to it. As the news on the course continues to spread, eventually the class size can grow to epic sizes — we can easily see how it reaches 200 thousand, 300 or more. Classes of 1 million or tens of millions may be in our future. If Stanford can teach one hundred thousand students at a time, what will this mean for education in general ?

The answer to the question of professors and teaching staff from where such a heightened interest in the course is on the surface is the very topic of artificial intelligence. This fall, Stanford professors Peter Norvig and Sebastian Tran (Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun) will lay out their most popular course - “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” - to the Internet for free download. Norwig and Tran will use automated systems to help them themselves at every step of this huge lesson: from choosing questions from students to passing exams .

Anyone can sign up, view lectures, do homework and pass exams. Each passed exam will receive a certificate confirming completion of the course and showing a place in knowledge among other students, including Stanford students, who will attend in person. Watch the video from Peter Norvig and Sebastian Tran for a preview of the course.