Stanford University’s free introductory distance learning online degree in artificial intelligence has attracted thousands of people barely a month after it was announced.

The course begins in September and represents the world’s first completely free, open-access university-level course utilising the virtual learning environment of the internet and has already attracted 58,000 learners, the New York Times reports.

Such is the popularity of the experimental online learning project that the establishment announced a further two earlier this week (August 16th) from its computer science department.

“The vision is: change the world by bringing education to places that can’t be reached today,” said Dr Sebastian Thrun, one of the world’s most prolific and respected artificial intelligence experts and a course instructors.