CSE P573 Professional Masters Program Introduction to Artificial Intelligence Autumn 2004

Summary

• Mondays 6:30 pm - 9:20 pm, Room CSE 305 (Note change of room!)
• First class Oct 4, last class Dec 6
• Take-home final exam distributed Dec 6, due Dec 13
• Professor Henry Kautz <kautz@cs.washington.edu>
• TA: Danny Wyatt <danny@cs.washington.edu>
• Textbook: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2nd Edition), Stuart Russell & Peter Norvig
• Course Mailing List:  http://mailman.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/csep573

This class provides a concise introduction to fundamental concepts and algorithms used in artificial intelligence, as well as investigating a number of advanced topics such as robotics and natural language understanding.

Part of each class will be a workshop, where we will gain experience in using relevant software tools.  Every student should therefore bring a Wi-Fi enabled laptop (Windows-compatible, Apple Macintosh, or Linux) to every class.  Please have your laptop set up properly as noted on the Computing page before you come to the first class.  If you need to use special computing devices or software because of a disability please contact the instructor as soon as possible, so that we can make necessary accommodations.

If you are unable to get a laptop (or to get your laptop set up properly by the first class), DON'T PANIC!  We will partner you with someone who does a working laptop for the class, and help you get straightened out by the next class.  In general in-class exercises will be done in teams, so if on a particular night you are unable to bring a laptop we will match you with someone who does have one.  Furthermore, we will try to have one or more departmental laptops available (but since these are checked out when people travel, we do not have a guaranteed supply).

Attendance and participation in classes is mandatory.  If your work or vacation schedule will require you to miss more than one class during the quarter please contact the instructor for permission before registering for the class.  Coursework will consist of programming and software tool exercises (often begun during class and then finished during the following week), written problems, and a take home final.  There will not be a separate course project or in-class examination.

We'll provide updates via the course mailing list.  Please sign up for it here.

Lectures & Assignments

Slides, in-class exercises, and homework are all linked from this page.

Computing

Please read this information about setting up your laptop and accessing course files.

Knowledge Prerequisites

Please review the following topics using your notes and/or textbooks from previous classes before the first class.

• Data structures and algorithms: linked lists, search trees, priority queues, and hash tables; adjacency list and adjacency matrix representations of graphs; Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm; Floyd-Warshall all-pairs shortest path algorithm.
• Complexity theory: asymptotic worst-case analysis; big-O notation; determining the running time of recursive procedures by solving recursive equations; converting logarithms to different bases; propositional (Boolean) logic, and the concept of satisfiability; conjunctive-normal form; NP-completeness.
• Basic probability: discrete and continuous random variables; probability distributions and cumulative distributions; mode, means, and medians; the binomial, exponential, and Gaussian (normal) distributions.

Programming Prerequisites

If your knowledge of the Unix utilities below is rusty, please obtain some reference books.  I like the O'Reilly Nutshell ones, such as Linux in a Nutshell, Java in a Nutshell, and Perl in a Nutshell. 

• Java, including running javac and java from a command line
• C / C++, including simple Unix Makefiles and running gcc or g++ from a command line
• Unix shell bash or csh
• Unix text editor emacs or vi
• Unix utilities awk, grep, and sort
• Recommended programming skills: Gnuplot or other scientific graphing program; PERL
• Using X-windows, including connecting to a remote machine using ssh, setting the DISPLAY variable, and launching client programs