Administrative policy

The core content of Artificial Intelligence is covered, including: problem-solving and search, logic and knowledge representation, planning and agents, probabilistic reasoning methods, and machine learning methods. Some application areas are explored briefly (e.g. natural language, information retrieval, robotic agents, etc.), as outlined in the class schedule.

15-211 and 15-212 or equivalent computer-science proficiency is required. Some knowledge of algorithms (e.g. indexing, "big-O" notation) and some mathematics (logic, probability or linear algebra) will help. Ability to program on your own in C, C++, and/or Java is important.

We expect to have 5 homeworks, 2 of which will be primarily programming, 2 will be primarily analytical, and the last will be a team-based mini-project, with team-based grades. The first 4 homeworks should be individual efforts. However, if you need help to complete the homeworks (e.g. from TAs or fellow students), you must document the nature of the help on the material you turn in. Although we will take into account the nature of that help in grading, it is invariably better to understand and complete the homework with (documented) help than not to complete the homework. Any copying or undocumented help will be considered outright cheating and will not be tolerated.

Our late policy on homeworks is simple: You have 5 days in total throughout the semester to use as free late days. For instance, you may turn in the third homework 2 days late and the mini-project 3 days late and everything else on time without penalty. Once you have used up your free late dates, we will not accept late homework. Hence, it is to your advantage to save the late days until you really need them -- most likely for the end-of-semester crunch. For the mini-project we will count available late days as the average remaining late dates of the team members, rounded to the nearest integer.