Computation, Information, and Intelligence
(ENGRI/CS/INFO/COGST 172), Spring 2007
1/22/07: Course Description and Policies
This webpage simply copies the "course description and
policies" first-day lecture handout.
"One of the strengths of this course is that computer science is
introduced in a different and interesting way. The lectures take a
look at the ideas underlying computer science, without actually trying
to implement these ideas in a program. This appeals to a larger
audience.... Overall I think the course has [achieved] what it was
supposed to; it gave us an understanding of [Artificial Intelligence] and unfortunately with
that comes illustrating how difficult AI can often be.... But [the staff
go] to extraordinary lengths to help students learn *how* to learn."
– excerpts from the Fall 2005 anonymous course-evaluation comments
"Never, ever, underestimate a Cornell student. Remember that."
– "Memorare", Anthony R. Ingraffea, Cornell prof. and Weiss
Fellowship recipient
"All satisfied with their seats? O.K. No talking, no smoking, no knitting, no newspaper reading, no sleeping, and for God's sake take notes."
– Lectures on Literature, Vladimir Nabokov, ex-Cornell
prof. and Nobel prize non-recipient
| | Lecture time/place: | MWF 10:10-11:00am, Thurston 203 |
| | Instructor: | Prof. Lillian Lee
4152
Upson,
 , x5-8119,
www.cs.cornell.edu/home/llee
Office hours: starting Friday
January 26, Tuesdays 3-4 and Fridays 11:15-12 except during Spring
break or otherwise announced.
|
| | TAs: |
Jared Cantwell, Rafael Frongillo, Nick Gallo, Selina Lok, Anton
Morozov,
Ben Pu,
Sean Seguin, Mark Yatskar, and Adam
Yeh — a truly excellent bunch of people looking forward to
helping you succeed in this course!
Contact and office-hour information TBA.
|
| | Course homepage: | www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs172/2007sp
Contents: handout
archive (policy discussed in the "Course materials" section
below) and, by the end of the second week of class, a "live" course
calendar with office hours, homework due dates, and exam dates.
Note: the website will never be the first place that an
announcement is made. This is so that you do not need to keep
checking the website for announcements (without prior notification from
us) &mdash one less thing you have to keep track of. You're welcome.
|
| | Exam dates: | in-class prelims Friday March 2 and Friday April
16 6,
non-optional final
Friday May 18th, 2-4:30pm, location TBD.
|
ENGRI/COMS/INFO/COGST 172
(henceforth "172") is an introduction to computer
science focusing on current methods and examples from the field of artificial
intelligence. It is not a programming course; rather, "pencil and
paper" problem sets are assigned, for the focus of the class is on
algorithmic concepts and mathematical models.
Subjects range from classic topics
to current research, as indicated by the following syllabus overview (specifics may be subject to change):
- Problem solving; or, Kasparov's defeat, Deep Blue's feat, and
the myth of brute-force search:
problem-space design and search; game playing, minimax, and
pruning
- Learning; or, the van that learned to drive itself: neural
nets, linear separators, and the perceptron convergence theorem
- Language; or, a computer that understands you like your mother:
Boolean and vector-space approaches to information retrieval; Web
structure, PageRank, and hubs and authorities;
machine translation; statistical learning in infants; language
models, context-free grammars, and hidden Markov models
- Computability; or, the unexpected hanging: Turing
machines; the uncomputability of the halting function;
undecidability for continuous paradigms;
zero-knowledge protocols
- The Turing Test; or, the ultimate final exam: Turing's proposal; the
Chinese Room; the Loebner prize
Prerequisites: elementary knowledge of differentiation; freshman
standing or permission of instructor.
Programming skills are neither required nor taught; one can do
exceedingly well in 172 without any prior programming experience.
Non-freshmen must apply for permission of the instructor to enroll
(forms will be available at the first few lectures). The intent is to
ensure as comfortable a learning environment as possible for
first-year students in the course. The permission decision will be primarily
based on applicant background in computer science (not
computer programming), information science, and cognitive
science; indeed, those with substantial prior experience in these
areas would presumably be better served by courses that don't overlap
with what they've already taken.
172 satisfies the introduction to engineering (ENGRI)
requirement for students in the College of Engineering. It counts
toward the mathematics and quantitative reasoning (MQR) requirement
for students in the College of Arts and Sciences, and toward the
Information Systems requirement for students completing a
minor or concentration in Information Science.
We are not aware of a text covering the breadth of the class
syllabus at a level and currency matching the course objectives. In lieu of a
required textbook, therefore, “lecture aid” handouts will be distributed at every
lecture. These are used both to facilitate lecture and to serve as a
supplement (not a replacement) for your own notes.
Any extra copies will be available in the racks outside Upson 303
(Cornell ID card required for after-hours access to the
building). Most handouts will also be posted to the class
website, generally within a few days after in-class distribution
(and certainly as soon as we can manage).
If you would like some opportunity to "look ahead"
before a given lecture, you may wish to consult the handouts from
the Fall 2005 running of the course, available at www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs172/2005fa.
But look-ahead is definitely optional, and you should be aware that updates to notation, definitions, and content are
planned for this semester; therefore, you definitely should not rely on the handouts from
Fall 2005.
The following four texts, all on reserve at the Engineering Library in
Carpenter Hall, are recommended for optional supplemental reading: they can be
consulted for back-up or alternate presentations of the course
material, and can be utilized for further exploration of the course
topics. The standard artificial-intelligence textbook is Russell and
Norvig's Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (second
edition, 2003). Belew's Finding Out About: A Cognitive
Perspective on Search Engine Technology and the WWW (2001) is
organized around the theme of identifying documents that help someone
learn more about a topic of interest, and thus touches upon classic
and Web information retrieval, learning, and natural language
processing. Some of our coverage of traditional
information-retrieval topics is drawn from Frakes and Baeza-Yates,
eds., Information Retrieval: Data Structures and Algorithms
(1992). A recent text concentrating on natural language processing is
Jurafsky and Martin's Speech and Language Processing: An
Introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational
Linguistics, and Speech Recognition (2000).
Philosophy: The problems we assign will often develop your
understanding by asking you to analyze the impact of altering
initial assumptions, to apply techniques and algorithms from lecture
in new settings, to extend them in novel ways, and so on. We believe
that confronting these "what would happen if we changed
...?" challenges will guide you to a deep
understanding of the original concepts, and will furthermore hone
critical-thinking skills that will serve you well in future
endeavors.
Homework and exam dates: There will be six problem sets, together comprising roughly
50% of the course grade, due at the beginning of class on
2/7,
2/21, 3/14, 3/28, 4/18, and 5/2 (all Wednesdays); each will be handed out at least
a week in advance. Late homework will not be accepted
(for emergencies, contact the instructor).
There will also be in-class prelims on Friday March 2 and
Friday April 6 (each roughly 15% of the course
grade) and a comprehensive final on Friday, May 18th, 2-4:30pm (roughly 20%
of the course grade).
Note that, as the course calendar will show once we have posted it to
the course webpage, there is never a homework due during the 8 days
preceding each exam.
Collaboration and reference to outside material: You may and are
encouraged to
discuss homework problems and general solution strategies with other
students, as well as consult books, web pages and other sources. As a
matter of academic integrity (see below) you must list your
collaborators and references consulted. Moreover,
to ensure the development of individual mastery of the material,
the following policies are in place. Discussions may not include
specific solution details (working out the details oneself is an
extremely valuable learning experience). Homeworks must be
written up independently of other people and without the aid of
collaborative notes. Even if you use outside references (including
the books on reserve), your write-ups must be in your own words. If ever in doubt about whether a particular situation is permissible,
ask beforehand.
Regrade requests: We will grade your work
carefully. But should questions about grading arise that are not
addressed by the course staff's solutions, then contact the
relevant grader
within three weeks after the homework was returned and solutions distributed. We reserve the
right to make regrade decisions "off-line" (i.e., not immediately at
the time requested).
Students should act in accordance with the
principles and guidelines given in the Code of Academic Integrity
(http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html, helpful expanded version
at http://web.cornell.edu/UniversityFaculty/docs/AI.Acknow.pdf) and
the policies outlined above. We will penalize violations — to do
otherwise would, at the very least, be unfair to other students.
Again, if
ever in doubt about whether something is allowed, ask beforehand.
Back to the ENGRI/CS/INFO/COGST 172
Spring 2007 home page