Jacob Beal

Graduate Student
Room 32-392
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
32 Vassar Street
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA, USA 02139
Phone: (617) 253-8581 (arrange in advance)
E-mail: jakebeal@mit.edu
CV (last updated 3/25/2008)
This page last updated on August 16th, 2008. If you want to automatically receive updates regarding my work, subscribe to my blog.

I am a postdoctoral associate at MIT CSAIL (formerly the AI lab).

I work with Project MAC and the Genesis Group. My main research interests are building human-like intelligence via collaborative communication and amorphous computing---the control of extremely large and unreliable spatially distributed systems. Recently, I have come to realize that both these pursuits are part of a larger theme, which I am currently calling "engineered emergence." I also dabble in a number of other things on the side that attract my interest or appear as obstacles in my path.

I'm married to Abi Harper, who is a massage therapist. Other than that, I don't plan to post my non-academic life on this web page.


Human-Level Intelligence (Publications/Talks)   |   Spatial Computing (Publications/Talks)   |   Engineered Emergence   |   Miscellaneous   |   Students

Research Publications & Talks

Publications and talks most likely to be of interest are marked with a star. This is a fairly complete list, including some early and obsolete work.

Human-Level Intelligence

Publications

Talks

Spatial Computing/Amorphous Computing

Publications

Talks The reader is advised that most spatial computing talks also involve a live demo that is usually at least indicated in the PDF slides.

Engineered Emergence

I'm not certain that "emergence" is the right word here, as different communities use it to mean several different things. At present, however, it is the best word I have for talking about controlling many unruly parts to produce a predictable behavior of the whole.

Publications

Talks

Miscellaneous Work

This is where interesting things that aren't in the main stream of my research go. Some of it may be dead ends or re-inventions of the wheel.

Publications

Talks

Students

Now that I've graduated a student, I'm going to start listing supervised theses here: Rants & Ramblings

These are written informally, impolitely, and imprecisely. Don't take them seriously unless they happen to inspire you...