Fall 2015 Artificial Intelligence (CS440/ECE448)

The goal of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the design of agents that can behave rationally in the real world by sensing their environment, planning their goals, and acting to optimally achieve these goals. This course provides an introductory survey to the techniques and applications of modern AI. The course will cover a broad range of conceptual approaches, from combinatorial search to probabilistic reasoning and machine learning, and a broad range of applications, from natural language understanding to computer vision. Lectures will stress not only the technical concepts themselves, but also the history of ideas behind them. Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30PM-4:45PM, 1404 Siebel Instructor: Svetlana Lazebnik (slazebni -at- illinois.edu) Office hours (3308 Siebel): Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:30-3PM or by appointment. TAs: Codruta Girlea (girlea2 -at- illinois.edu), Qieyun Dai (dai9 -at- illinois.edu), Huan Gui (huangui2 -at- illinois.edu), Yiming Jiang (yjiang16 -at- illinois.edu), Keyang Zhang (kzhang53 -at- illinois.edu). TA office hours (207 Siebel): Mondays 5-7PM, Wednesdays 10-11AM, Fridays 2-4PM. Email for contacting course staff: cs440-fall2015 -at- googlegroups.com Always check announcements for short-notice changes to instructor and TA office hours!

Prerequisites: data structures (CS 225 or equivalent), algorithms highly desirable, basic calculus, familiarity with probability concepts a plus but not required.

Textbook: Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 3rd edition.

Grading scheme:

• Programming assignments or MPs (mini-projects): 55% for on-campus students and 60% for online students.
  • MPs can be done in groups of up to three people. Three-unit students must work with three-unit students and four-unit students must work with four-unit students.
  • Four-unit students will have to solve extra problems on every assignment.
• Midterm and final: 40%.
  • Closed book, closed notes, no electronic devices.
• Participation: 5% for on-campus students (extra credit for online students).
  
  
• For details, see the Spring 2015 grading scheme and statistics.
  

• December 9: Solutions to practice final problems are available on Compass.
• November 23: If you have a conflict with the regularly scheduled final exam, please email slazebni@illinois.edu no later than Tuesday, December 1, and describe the nature of your conflict.
• November 17: Due to a family emergency, Tuesday's lecture was cancelled. The material will be covered on Thursday.
• November 17: Assignment 4 is out, due Monday, December 7, 11:59:59PM.
• October 27: Assignment 3 is out, due Monday, November 16, 11:59:59PM.
• October 15: The final exam will take place on Tuesday, December 15, 7-8:15PM, in Siebel 1404.
• October 13: Solutions to sample midterm questions have been posted to Compass.
• October 12: Grades and the rubric for MP1 are available on Compass.
• October 11: Sample midterm questions have been posted.
• October 1: The midterm will take place in class on Thursday, October 15. If you have an unavoidable conflict for that date, please send email to cs440-fall2015@googlegroups.com with details of your conflict (including dates you will be unavailable) by the end of Tuesday, October 6.
• October 1: Assignment 2 is out, due Monday, October 26, 11:59:59PM.
• September 22: Prof. Lazebnik's office hours for today are cancelled. There will be TA office hours 2-3PM in 207 Siebel.
• September 15: There has been a minor clarification in directions for Part 1.2 of Assignment 1 regarding the movement definition.
• September 10: Assignment 1 is out, due Monday, September 28, 11:59:59PM.
• August 27: Office hours have been posted (see above). They will start on Monday, August 31st.
• August 24: Welcome! Please enroll yourself in the Piazza discussion board. Participation on the board is voluntary, but it counts towards the course participation points.