CS65 Syllabus

The syllabus below is an outline of what we will be doing this semester. It is subject to change, so watch the announcements for alterations. Chapters 26 and 27 take a philosophical and broad view of artificial intelligence. You are encouraged to read those chapters on your own at any point in the semester.

Reasonable accommodations will be provided for students with physical, sensory, cognitive, learning, and psychological disabilities. Please contact the Disability Services Office located at Macalester Health Services, 696-6275, to discuss accessing accommodations.

If you require some accommodation for religious purposes, please do not hesitate to talk to me about your needs.

Date Topics Readings Assignments
Week 1 Sept 9 Intro and background, "agents," project ideas 1-2
Sept 11 "Agents" as a metaphor 1-2
Week 2 Sept 14 Robots: situated agents, sensors, affectors, control 25
Sept 16 Lego robots, interactive C 25, +
Sept 18 Robot building lab +
Week 3 Sept 21 Robot control methods 25, +
Sept 23 Adaptive robots 25, + Groups on Robotics
Sept 25 Simple "reasoning" agents: search 3 (skim some)
Week 4 Sept 28 Basic and informed search algorithms 3-4 (skim 4.2-4.4)
Sept 30 Informed search: A* 4 (skim 4.2-4.4) Groups on Search
Oct 2 Game-playing: minimax, alpha-beta 5 (skip 5.5)
Week 5 Oct 5 Game-playing, alternative methods 5 (skip 5.5)
Oct 7 Knowledge representation, logic, inference 6 (skim through 6.3) Groups on Games
Oct 9 First-order logic 7 (skim 7.1-7.3)
Week 6 Oct 12 Knowledge bases, knowledge engineering skim 8
Oct 14 Inference methods: backward/forward chaining 9, skim 9 Groups on Logic/Reasoning
Oct 16 Inference, Resolution, unification, Prolog skim 9, 10 (10.3, 10.5, 10.6)
Week 7 Oct 19 Production systems, frames 10 (10.3, 10.5, 10.6)
Oct 21 Frames, semantic networks 10 (10.3, 10.5, 10.6) Groups on Expert systems
Oct 23 Planning: simple techniques 11
Week 8 Oct 26 Hierarchical and partial order planning 11
Oct 28 Predictive and reactive planning 13 14, skim 15 Groups on Planning
Oct 30 Fall Break cheap novel
Week 9 Nov 2 Planning wrap-up, Uncertainty and probability 13, 14
Nov 4 Bayes' rule, Belief networks 14 Groups on Uncertainty
Nov 6 Diagnosis systems 14
Week 10 Nov 9 Learning: induction, version spaces 18 (omit 18.4, 18.6)
Nov 11 Decision tree learning 18 (omit 18.4, 18.6) Groups on Learning
Nov 13 Neural Nets 19 (omit 19.6)
Week 11 Nov 16 Neural Nets/ GAs 19 (omit 19.6) skim 20
Nov 18 Knowledge-based learning: EBL 21 (omit 21.4) Groups on Learning
Nov 20 Case-base learning +
Week 12 Nov 23 Natural language processing: parsing skim 22
Nov 25 Issues: ambiguity, dialogue, metaphor 23.1, 23.5, 23.6 Groups on Natural language
Nov 27 No Class cheap novel
Week 13 Nov 30 Vision, image processing skim 24
Dec 2 Vision techniques skim 24 Groups on Vision
Dec 4 Agent and Robot recap ...
Week 14 Dec 7 Project presentations
Dec 9 Project presentations
Dec 11 Project presentations
Week 15 Dec 14 Project presentations
Finals Dec 21 Final Paper Due: Monday, Dec 21, Noon!