T-622-ARTI, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, Spring 2009

• Instructor: Hannes Högni Vilhjálmsson (hannes+ru.is, skuggavera+hotmail.com on MSN)
• Assistant: Arnar Birgisson (arnarbi+gmail.com also on GTalk)
• Office: 2nd floor, Kringlan 1, 559-6323, 824-8814
• Theory Lectures: Tuesdays and Fridays 10:05-11:40 (K-21)
• Paper Discussion: Tuesdays 10:05-11:40 (K-21)
• Labs: Mondays 15:30-17:05 (K-21)
• Online Forum: http://ruclasses.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=arti2009 (You need to register using your own name)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is devoted to the computational study of intelligent behavior, including areas such as problem solving, knowledge representation, reasoning, planning and scheduling, machine learning, perception and communication. This course gives an overview of the aforementioned AI subfields from a computer science perspective and introduces fundamental solution techniques for addressing them. An important part of the course is an independent final project where the students develop AI software in an area of their choice.

On the completion of the course the students should:

• have a good overview of the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and a thorough understanding of the fundamental solution methods used to attack a wide variety of AI-related problems.
• have gained experience building a small special-purpose AI system.

The textbook for this class is: “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Second Edition)” by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig. This book has a very good web site full of useful AI resources.

You complete two programming assignments, two problem sets and a final programming project. These can all be group projects (up to 3 people). Make sure you clearly indicate who is part of the group. Remember that the assignments and problem sets is practice for the final exam, so all group members should make sure they understand the solution. You should discuss final project ideas with instructor in week 6, hand in a proposal in week 7 and demonstrate final project in week 12. Everything that has to be turned in, should arrive no later than at 23:59 on the due date, or else incur 10% penalty for each additional day, including weekends and holidays.

After every Tuesday class, the instructor will post a link on the course online forum to a paper or article on an interesting aspect of Artificial Intelligence. This may or may not be directly related to the book chapter being covered that week.

You need to read this paper or article by the end of Friday and post, under the same forum thread, 2 questions you have about the contents of the reading. This post has to arrive by 23:59 on Friday night to count towards your paper discussion grade. The questions can point out concepts that you have difficulty understanding, but preferably they should be questions that provoke discussion from the material. No grade will be given for these questions, you automatically get points for being on time.

In the discussion section of the following Tuesday class, chosen questions from those submitted will be discussed by the group as a whole and you are expected to participate.