AI CS 6300 Course Information

This course will introduce the basic ideas and techniques underlying the design of intelligent computer systems. A specific emphasis will be on the statistical and decision-theoretic modeling paradigm, with applications ranging from diagnosis to game-playing to robotics. This course is built around several multi-part programming projects, based on the game of Pacman.

Coursework will consist of two kinds of assignments. Programming projects will be in Python. Written homeworks will be given most weeks.

Prerequisites: This course has substantial elements of both programming and mathematics, because these elements are central to modern AI.

Expectations: You are expected to come to class prepared by reading the suggested sections of the book and the slides ahead of time.


 Textbook

There is no required textbook for this course. Recommended are:

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Third Edition)
by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig. Prentice Hall, 2009.

Be sure you have the Third Edition. It is BLUE, not GREEN or BURGUNDY: the other editions are not sufficient.

We will also occasionally have readings from:

Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction
by Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto. MIT Press, 1998.

This book is available online.

Substantial parts of the course materials are taken from CS 188 at Berkeley. Students are invited to look at their on-line lectures for alternative presentation of the materials.

 Grading

Overall grades will be determined from:

Assignments (homework and projects) must be turned in electronically by midnight on the listed due date. With the exception of HW06, assignments may be turned in up to two days late. A penalty of 10% per business day will be assessed. Hence the weekend counts as one day.

There will be 3 equally weighted exams, covering the 3 major portions of the class and comprising 35% of the grade. Exam 3 will take place during the Final Exam time slot, but will be given the same amount of time as exams 1 and 2.

There is a moratorium on complaints about grading, etc., of one week.


 Course Policies

Cheating: Any assignment or exam that is handed in must be your own work. However, talking with one another to understand the material better is encouraged. Recognizing the distinction between cheating and cooperation is very important. If you copy someone else's solution, you are cheating. If you let someone else copy your solution, you are cheating. If someone dictates a solution to you, you are cheating. Everything you hand in must be in your own words, and based on your own understanding of the solution. If someone helps you understand the problem during a high-level discussion, you are not cheating. Any student who is caught cheating will be given an E in the course and referred to the University Student Behavior Committee. Please don't take that chance - if you're having trouble understanding the material, please let us know and we will be more than happy to help.

School of Computing Cheating Policy: http://www.cs.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/cheating_policy.pdf  (Links to an external site.)

College guidelines

Campus safety