Syllabus for CS250
Aritificial intelligence (AI) is a broad field that draws on many disciplines, and so too will this course. The
use of the computer as a tool for research, and a firm grounding in computation distinguishes AI from other cognitive
sciences. Thus, this course will include readings on the philosophy of mind, logic, linguistics and computer programming
(mainly in Lisp).
The texts for the course include:
Note: Did you know that you can buy your textbooks online (for all classes, not just this one)? Both BigWords and Varsity Books sell textbooks from the Web.
AIMA is the main textbook and has become very popular with introductory AI classes nationwide. I evaluated several books, but chose AIMA because of its breadth of coverage. The book addresses natural language processing, robotics, vision and many topics not found in other texts.
The book is well-written and covers CLOS2 as well as "ordinary" Lisp. In the past some students have liked the book very much, while others have hated it. I'm very interested in your thoughts on this book.
This is the definitive book on Lisp (and I do mean definitive). The text is a bit dated, the explanations long and detailed with a smattering of humor (try looking up "recursion" in the index). But if you want to know whether you're wrong or your Lisp compiler is, this is the place to go. If you're going to continue in AI or just with Lisp, you need this book.
The syllabus closely parallels the AIMA book, and the topics are keyed to AIMA chapters. The Lisp readings are designed to give you the needed background in Lisp to understand the code that accompanies the book.
Note: If a lecture title is linked, then the lecture is available online. See the heading Linked Lectures for more info on reading online lectures.
|
When |
Topic |
AIMA |
Lisp |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Intelligence: Real and Artificial | Chapter 1 - Introduction (Finish by Thursday) | |
| Introduction to Lisp I | Chapters 1, 2 and 3 | ||
| Week 2 | Intelligent agents | Chapter 2 | Chapters 4 and 5 |
| No lecture Thursday | |||
| Week 3 | Introduction to Lisp II | User's Guide to AIMA Code | Chapters 6 and 7 |
| Special session in Maclab (7-9 pm) |
Basic
environment Vacuum environment Vacuum agents |
Chapter 8 | |
| Intelligent agents | |||
| Week 4 | Problem Solving through Search (Tuesday, Thursday) | Chapter 3 | Skim Chapter 9 |
| Week 5 | Smart Searching | Chapter 4 | Chapter 11 |
| Week 6 | Midterm (Tuesday) | Covers 1-4 | Covers 1-8, 9 and 11 |
| Logical Reasoning I (Thursday) | Chapter 6 | ||
| Week 7 | Logical reasoning II (Tuesday) | ||
| First-Order Logic I (Thursday) | Chapter 7 | ||
| Week 8 | First-Order Logic II (Tuesday) | ||
| Knowledge Bases I (Thursday) | Chapter 8 | For CS350: Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence | |
| Week 9 | Knowledge Bases II (Tuesday) | ||
|
Thanksgiving |
|||
| Week 10 | Inference in First-Order Logic | Section 9.6 | |
The lectures will usually be written in Microsoft PowerPoint '97, which means they can be read either with Office '97 (Windows) or Office '98 (Mac).
2. CLOS is the Common Lisp Object System, and brings together Lisp and object-oriented programming. CLOS has many powerful features as an OO language, and in fact is more powerful than C++ in some ways. (Return)
 |