CS/ENGRI 172: Computing, Information, and Intelligence

An introduction to computer science using methods and examples from the field of artificial intelligence. Topics include game playing, search techniques, learning theory, compute-intensive methods, data mining, information retrieval, the Web, natural language processing, machine translation, and the Turing test. This is not a programming course; rather, "pencil and paper" problem sets are assigned. Not open to students who have completed the equivalent of COM S 100; contact the instructor if you have questions.

Course Staff

Instructor:
Amanda Holland-Minkley
hollandm@cs.cornell.edu
Rhodes 403
255-8957

Teaching Assistants:
Amy Gale, amyg@cs.cornell.edu
William Lin, wrl5@cornell.edu
Shannon McGrath, szm2@cornell.edu

Meeting Information

10:10 - 11:00 AM, MWF
Hollister 306
Final Exam: December 15, 12:00 - 2:30 PM

Office Hours

(see Final Exam Information for 12/8 - 12/12 office hours)

Monday 4:00 - 5:00 William Lin 328A Upson Hall
Tuesday 10:00 - 11:00 Amy Gale 423 Rhodes Hall
2:00 - 3:00 Amanda Holland-Minkley 403 Rhodes Hall
Wednesday 1:30 - 2:30 Amanda Holland-Minkley 403 Rhodes Hall
Thursday 11:00 - 12:00 Amy Gale 423 Rhodes Hall
1:30 - 2:30 Shannon McGrath 328B Upson Hall

Course Information

Course Information Handout (jump to: Syllabus, Enrollment Information and Policy, Important Dates, Course Materials, Homework and Exams, Coursework, Academic Integrity, Other Resources)

NEW: Guide to Doing Homework, by Amy Gale

Handouts

Course handouts are available at all hours in the racks outside Upson 303 starting the same day as the course in which they were distributed. Most, but not all, handouts will also eventually be made available here.

Lecture Schedule

Lecture 1
8/29/03
Introduction to CS/ENGRI 172, Computer Science, and Artificial Intelligence Handouts: "Defining Computer Science" lecture notes [pdf]; Course Information Sheet [html, pdf]; Waver Form [pdf]; Newell & Simon's Turing Award Lecture reading [notes and full text]
Lecture 2
9/1/03
The Science in Computer Science: Newell & Simon's Turing Award Lecture  
Lecture 3
9/3/03
Problem Solving and Problem Spaces Handouts: "Representing Problems" reading [hardcopy only]
Lecture 4
9/5/03
More Problem Spaces: Design Principles and Implicit Specifications  
Lecture 5
9/8/03
Problem Solving: Path Trees, Gorn Numbering Handouts: "Problem Solving - Path Trees and Search" lecture notes [pdf]
Lecture 6
9/10/03
Search: DFS and BFS Handouts: "Office Hours Schedule" handout [pdf]
Lecture 7
9/12/03
Game Playing: History of Computer Chess, Game Trees  
Lecture 8
9/15/03
Game Playing: Minimax Search, Evaluation Functions, and Pruning Handouts: "Game Playing" handout [pdf]; Homework 1 (due September 24th)
Lecture 9
9/17/03
Game Playing: Alpha-Beta Pruning; Non-Zero Sum Games  
Lecture 10
9/19/03
Final Thoughts on Computer Chess; Learning Introduction Handouts: "Final Thoughts on Chess" handout [pdf]
Lecture 11
9/22/03
Function Learning: Feature Vectors, Supervised Learning, Perceptrons Handouts: "Vector Notation for Function Input" handout [pdf]; "Perceptrons and Perceptron Learning" handout [pdf]
Lecture 12
9/24/03
Perceptron Functions, Learning Perceptron Functions, and Oracle Restrictions  
Lecture 13
9/26/03
Perceptron Learning Algorithm and Convergence of the PLA Handouts: "Proof of PLA Convergence" handout [pdf]; Homework 2 (due October 3rd)
Lecture 14
9/29/03
Nearest-Neighbor Learning Handouts: "Nearest-Neighbor Learning" handout [pdf]
Lecture 15
10/1/03
Introduction to Turing Machines Handouts: "Turing Machines" handout [pdf]; Homework 1 returned, with Homework 1 solutions (including a Guide to Doing Homework)
Lecture 16
10/3/03
Turing Machines and Computability Handouts: "Computability and Complexity" reading; Homework 3 (due October 10th)
Lecture 17
10/6/03
Limits on Turing Machine Computability Handouts: "Turing Machine Computability" handout [pdf]
Lecture 18
10/8/03
Information Retrieval Handouts: "Information and Intelligence" handout [pdf]; "Midterm Information" handout [pdf]
Lecture 19
10/10/03
Corpus Indexing and B-Trees Handouts: Homework 2 returned with Homework 2 solutions; partial Homework 3 solutions
Lecture 20
10/15/03
B-Trees Handouts: Homework 3 Parts A and C returned with remainder HW3 solutions
Lecture 21
10/20/03
Vector Space Models: term-frequency weighting Handouts: Midterm returned with solutions
Lecture 22
10/22/03
Vector Space Models: tf-idf weighting Handouts: "Vector Space Models" handout [pdf]; "Excerpts on the Structure of the Web" reading; Homework 4 (due October 31st)
Lecture 23
10/24/03
Structure of the Web; Links and IR Handouts: "Hypersearching the Web" reading
Lecture 24
10/27/03
Hubs and Authorities Algorithm Handouts: "Hubs and Authorities Algorithm" handout [pdf]
Lecture 25
10/29/03
Local Structure of the Web Handouts: "Mathematical Models of Link Creation" handout [pdf]
Lecture 26
10/31/03
Models of Link Creation continued  
Lecture 27
11/3/03
Natural Language Processing & Ambiguity  
Lecture 28
11/5/03
Context Free Grammars Handouts: "Context Free Grammars" handout [pdf]
Lecture 29
11/7/03
More Context Free Grammars Handouts: Homework 5 (due November 19th); Homework 4 returned with solutions
Lecture 30
11/10/03
Push-Down Automata Handouts: "Push-down Automata" handout [pdf]
Lecture 31
11/12/03
Discourse Structure Handouts: "Discourse Structure" handout [pdf]
Lecture 32
11/14/03
Grosz and Sidner Discourse Model  
Lecture 33
11/17/03
Word Frequency Distribution and Miller's Monkey Model Handouts: "Word Frequency Distribution" handout
Lecture 34
11/19/03
Federalist Papers Authorship Identification Handouts: Homework 6 (due December 3rd)
Lecture 35
11/21/03
Machine Translation Handouts: "Machine Translation" handout [pdf]; "Readings on Statistical NLP" (TBD 11/24 and 11/26)
Lecture 36
11/24/03
Statistical Segmentation of Japanese Handouts: "Readings on the Turing Test" (TBD 12/1 - 12/5)
Lecture 37
11/26/03
Human Statistical Learning Handouts: Homework 5 returned with solutions
Lecture 38
12/1/03
Turing's Imitation Game  
Lecture 39
12/3/03
Searle and the Chinese Room  
Lecture 40
12/5/03
The Restricted Turing Test Handouts: "Final Exam Information" handout [pdf]; Homework 6 solutions