| | Overview CS221 is the introductory course into the field of Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University. It covers basic elements of AI, such as knowledge representation, inference, machine learning, planning and game playing, information retrieval, and computer vision and robotics. CS221 is a broad course aimed to teach students the very basics of modern AI. It is prerequisite to many other, more specialized AI classes at Stanford University. Instructors   Professors Peter Novig and Sebastian Thrun took over CS221 from Professor Andrew Y. Ng in 2010. Peter Norvig is author of the celebrated textbook Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. He is also Director of Research at Google. Thrun is well known for his work on robotics and self-driving cars (His team won the DARPA Grand Challenge). Thrun is research professor at Stanford and a Google Fellow. He is one of the youngest individuals ever elected into the National Academy of Engineering (at age 39). Who Should Attend? With an in-class enrollment of nearly 200 students, CS221 is one of the largest courses taught at Stanford University, across all departments and all disciplines. It is included in the core curriculum of several degree programs at Stanford. The course is tailored towards advanced undergraduate or early graduate students, new to Artificial Intelligence, who wish to learn about the excitement in the field. The course indtroduce a wealth of topics in AI, many of which are then subject of more specialized follow-on classes at Stanford. This version of CS221 will also be offered online. Using some new technology, the instuctors will offer materials used in this class to online students, free of charge. It is their objective to offer identical homework assignments, quizzes, and exams in both versions of this course. Students taking the online version will therefore be graded according to the same grading criteria as students taking CS221 at Stanford. However, to receive Stanford credit, the course has to be taken through Stanford; and students have to be registered at Stanford University. Online student will only get a certificate in the name of the instructors, but no official Stanford certificate. Course Description This course is 10 weeks long. The in-class version starts Tue, Sept 27. The online version begins Mon, Oct 2, 2011. The course consists of - Approximately 20 lectures. Each lecture includes quizzes that we ask you to do, but which are not counted towards the final grade of this class. Instead, you can see the right answer to each quizz right after submitting your answers.
- Approximately 8 homework assignments. Those are just like our quizzes, and if you do well in the quizzes, you should do well in the assignments. However, we won't show you the correct answer only with a few days delay, to discourage cheating.
- One midterm and one final exam. These are like extended quizzes, covering all subject areas of the course discussed so far. The exams will also check your general knowledge about topics covered in the reading materials (the book).
The central objective is to teach basic methods in AI, and to convey enthusiasm for the field. AI has emerged as one of the most impactful disciplines in science and technology. Google, for example, is massively run on AI. Students passing this course should be proficient basic methods of AI, and have a broad overview of the field.q Passing Requirements To pass this course, you have to attend (or watch online) all lectures. You have to turn in all homework assignments and exams. We grant a total of six "late days" which can be used to turn an assignment or an exam in late. Stanford has a strong Honor's Code. We expect you to honor this code. Violations may lead to disciplinary action against you. Prerequisites A solid understanding of probability and linear algebra will be required. |
