Course Description | |
CSE 415: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence The University of Washington, Seattle, Autumn 2022 | |
Artificial intelligence is a broad field encompassing
computational models of human cognition, formal systems
for representing and processing symbolic information,
expert systems technology, and a variety of techniques
for learning, understanding signals, and solving problems.
This course provides a basic introduction to key techniques:
state-space search, game-playing, probabilistic reasoning,
and learning. Over the last 50 years the field has grown
tremendously, and this course can only scratch the surface
within the field.
This course begins with a discussion of what "artificial intelligence" means and how it can be useful. Next is a grounding in state-space search, problem formulation and solving. We then consider state-space search in the context of game playing, which then leads to alpha-beta pruning, expectimax search and the modeling of uncertainty. After that, we focus primarily on machine learning, starting with methods for reasoning under uncertainty. We cover reinforcement learning in Markov Decision Processes, perceptron learning, and we introduce deep learning. We touch briefly on ethical issues and the future of AI. The teaching methodology combines lectures, in-class and out-of-class exercises, and programming assignments. | |