This is an introductory course on artificial intelligence, which may broadly be thought of as the art and science of making dumb computers act (or be?) clever. Coverage will be relatively broad, spanning (e.g.): planning, knowledge representation, basic probability and uncertainty, statistical machine learning (supervised and reinforcement) and (at least briefly) philosophical considerations. This is a lot of gound to cover. But you'll be able to dive in to a specific topic via the course project.

A note on attribution: We will be using some materials from the CS188 Berkeley AI class, with permission. I am indebted to John DeNero and Dan Klein for developing such excellent resources and making them available.

Homeworks will consist of both written assignments and programming projects. For the latter, we will use the Pacman AI environment and accompanying homeworks developed at UC Berkeley. All programming assignments must be completed using Python and are due at midnight on the day indicated on the schedule. Late assignment policy: Late homeworks will be docked 10 points (out of 100) for every day late.

In some classes, we will have in-class exercises relevant to the material covered in the lecture; these may be done in groups or individually. Grading on these will be largely participatory. The lowest of these will be dropped (e.g., if you are absent for class and miss one exercise, this will have no effect).

Assignments will be in Python. You must be willing to pick it up as we go if you don't know it already. We will be using some linear algebra, (basic) calculus and probability, although I will generally introduce what we need.

A commitment to the principles of academic integrity is essential to the mission of Northeastern University. The promotion of independent and original scholarship ensures that students derive the most from their educational experience and their pursuit of knowledge. Academic dishonesty violates the most fundamental values of an intellectual community and undermines the achievements of the entire University. For more information, please refer to the Academic Integrity Web page.

More specific to this class: the Pacman programming assignments you will complete are widely used. Do not copy solutions to these from the web; we will recognize if you have done this, and there will be consequences! You are expected to complete all assignments on your own.