COMP 590 Artificial Intelligence

Fall 2011, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30-4:45 PM

Instructor: Svetlana Lazebnik (lazebnik -at- cs.unc.edu)

Credit: 3 units

Prerequisites: basic programming and data structures (COMP 401 and 410), algorithms (COMP 550) highly desired, basic calculus, familiarity with probability concepts a plus but not required.

Textbook: Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 2nd or 3rd edition.

Description: 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 maximally 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 logic to probabilistic reasoning, and a broad range of applications, from natural language understanding to robotics. Lectures will stress not only the technical concepts themselves, but also the history of ideas behind them.

Grading:

• Participation: 20%
• Midterm and final: 30%
• Assignments: 50%