* Learning procedural abstractions
* Adapting estimation-of-distribution algorithms to program evolution
* Applying plop to various interesting data sets
* Adapting plop to do natural language processing or image processing
* Better mechanisms for exploiting background knowledge in program evolution
This position is open to all students currently pursuing a BS, MS or PhD in computer science or a related technical field. It is probably better-suited to a grad student, but I'm open to considering an advanced undergrad as well. The only hard and fast requirements for consideration are a strong programming background (any language(s)) and some experience in AI and/or machine learning. Some pluses:
* Functional programming experience (esp. Lisp, but ML, Haskell, or even the functional style of C++ count too)
* Experience with evolutionary computation or stochastic local search (esp. estimation-of-distribution algorithms and/or genetic programming)
* Open-source contributor (esp. Maxima)
* Interest in artificial general intelligence (i.e. building a thinking machine)
More info on plop at http://code.google.com/p/plop/, more info on the Google internship program at: http://www.google.com/jobs/students
Please contact me directly (email: madscience at google) with your info, so I can watch for your resume.
Thanks! Moshe Looks
P.S. Disclaimer: I can't promise anyone an internship, you have to go through the standard Google application & interview process for interns, yada yada ...
P.P.S. Any Googlers reading this and looking for a cool 20% project should contact me as well ;->