Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a field of study that attempts to build intelligent artifacts or machines. All the way back in 1979 a provocatively titled book, Machines Who Think by Pamela McCorduck, argued that we have already successfully done so. While this is certainly controversial, the more practical question is will we ever build intelligent machines and how might we go about doing so.
Philosophers (such as John Searle) distinguish what they call strong AI from weak AI. The idea of strong AI is a truly intelligent machine that thinks in much the same way that a human does and is able to perform as well as a human on difficult mental problems. Weak AI is a machine that is able to successfully mimic some human-like behaviors. Searle argues that the former is logically impossible and the latter has probably already occurred or at least certainly will in the future. Many (most?) AI researchers ignore this issue and try to build machines that can solve problems.
This class addresses the fundamental question of what human thinking and intelligence are, how the mind works and whether it might be possible to build machines that work in similar ways. Sometimes we are interested in figuring out how humans solve particular problems and trying to solve them in the same way. Other times we just want to solve problems in the most efficient way possible. But either way, humans and their intelligent minds are the gold standard by which AI systems are judged and evaluated.
This is a practical programming class that teaches students approaches to problem solving they might not encounter in other classes. Often AI solutions need to use heuristics (rules of thumb) to help guide problem solving, because optimal techniques are too expensive. As with any programming and problem-solving course, critical thinking and careful design are essential. Written descriptions (especially of the team project) and well documented code are also a requirement. Teams will present their final projects to the class in a spoken and visual way to both explain the problem they solved and explain the solution technique they applied.
This class has a significant team-based project. That requires students to be able to work well with a selected group of their classmates and together build a significant system. Often AI systems are able to solve problems that are particularly useful to society, because of their attempts to produce human-level behavior. This requires careful attention to ethical and societal concerns, but can at least sometimes produce results that make a significantly positive difference to the world.