AP/PHIL/COGS 3750 Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
Winter 2011

Cognitive Science Program,
York University

Course Description

This course is an introductory exposition to topics in Artificial Intelligence (AI). It covers, in some depth, some core subjects of current research and deployed applications in AI: search, knowledge representation, reasoning, intelligent agents and their modeling, acting and planning, neural networks, and genetic algorithms. Other important subareas of AI, such as robotics or computer vision, are discussed in depth in other courses.

Prerequisites

At least six credits in philosophy, including AP/PHIL 2100 3.00 and one of AP/PHIL 2160 3.00 or AP/PHIL 2240 3.00.

What's New

Instructor

Prof. Yves Lespérance
Office: CSE 3052A
Tel: 736-2100 ext. 70146
Email: lesperan "at" cse.yorku.ca

Lectures

Monday and Wednesday, from 13:00 to 14:30 in ACW 303.

Instructor Office Hours

Monday and Wednesday 16:00-17:00, and Friday 15:00-16:00.

Textbook

Levesque, H.J. Thinking as Computation: A First Course, draft manuscript to appear, MIT Press, 2011.

Copies of this manuscript textbook will be sold at cost in class.

Evaluation Scheme

Programming assignment       10%
Midterm test       30%
Class presentation or term paper       40%
Class participation       20%
Total 100%

Guidelines for Class Presentation: Your task is to introduce the paper/topic you have been assigned and lead the discussion on it (contact the instructor to book a slot in the presentation schedule). Start by giving a 20min presentation to introduce the paper (topic, key concepts, main arguments, etc.) and list some issues (unclear aspects, criticisms, counter arguments, etc.) for later discussion. You may use Powerpoint or prepare an outline sheet to be distributed (send these to the instructor at least 24h ahead of time). After your presentation, lead a class discussion of the paper dealing with the issues you have identified and any other issues raised.

Guidelines for Term Paper: This should be on a topic related to the Philosophy of AI, possibly one covered in class (in this case your paper must go beyond what is covered in class), or possibly a new topic. The paper must present and critically discuss some of the literature related to the selected topic. First prepare a one page outline of your topic with a list of references, and submit it to the instructor by March 9 at the latest for approval. After your outline has been approved, proceed with your readings and writing the term paper. There is a length limit of 3000 words (excluding references). The term paper is due on April 5.

Tentative Schedule

The first half of the course will be an introduction to Artificial Intelligence with an instructor lectures format. The second half of the course will cover various topics in the philosophy of AI in a seminar format, with student presentations and discussion.

Readings and Lecture Transparencies

References

On the philosphy of AI:

Andy Clark, Being there : putting brain, body, and world together again. MIT Press, 1997. [On reserve in library.]

M. Bedau and P. Humphreys (eds.), Emergence, MIT Press, 2008. [On reserve]

R. Cummins and D.D. Cummins (eds.), Minds, Brains and Computers. Blackwell, Malden, MA, USA, 2000. [On reserve]

R. Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind. [On reserve]

R. Penrose, Shadows of the Mind.

J.R. Newman and E. Nagel, Godel's Proof.

W. Bechtel and G. Graham (eds.), A Companion to Cognitive Science. Blackwell, Malden, MA, USA, 1998. [On reserve]

Kenneth M. Ford, Clark Glymour, and Patrick J. Hayes (eds.), Thinking about android epistemology. [On reserve]

S. Franchi and G. Guzeldere (eds.), Mechanical Bodies, Computational Minds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 2005. [On reserve]

R. Pfeifer and C. Scheier, Understanding Intelligence. [On reserve]

Z. Pylyshyn, The Robot's Dilemma: The Frame Problem in AI. [On reserve]

J. Copeland, Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Introduction, Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1993. [On reserve]

A Prolog textbook:

Clocksin, W.F. and Mellish, C.S., Programming in Prolog, (5th edition), Springer Verlag, New York, 2004.

AI textbooks:

Russell, S.J. and Norvig, P., Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 3rd edition Prentice Hall, 2010. Authors' web site, Publisher's web site. [On reserve]

Poole, D. and Mackworth, A. Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents,, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2010.

Nilsson, N.J., Artificial Intelligence: A New Synthesis,, Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, 1998.

On logic:

The material in the Levesque textbook should be sufficient. For more details on logc and its use in AI, see Chapters 7, 8, and 9 of the Russell and Norvig textbook. In PHIL 2100, the following textbook is used:

Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning (2nd Edition), by Kalish, Montague and Mar. Oxford University Press, 1980.

Some more mathematically advanced Logic textbooks are:

Herbert B.Enderton. A Mathematical Introduction to Logic. Academic Press, 2001.

Elliott Mendelsohn. Introduction to Mathematical Logic. Fifth edition. Chapman and Hall, 2009.

On knowledge representation:

Ronald J. Brachman and Hector J. Levesque, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann 2004, ISBN 1-55860-932-6

Baral, C. Knowledge representation, reasoning, and declarative problem solving. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York, 2003.

Genesereth, M.R. and Nilsson, N.J. Logical foundations of artificial intelligence. Morgan Kaufmann, Los Altos, CA, 1987.

On reasoning about action:

Reiter, R., Knowledge in Action: Logical Foundations for Specifying and Implementing Dynamical Systems, MIT Press, 2001. York Library eCopy, Book home page.

Using Prolog in the AP Labs

Students may use Prolog on the PCs available in the AP Labs in TEL 2003, 2027, 2032, 2114, 2116, 2118. Follow the AP Labs link for information on accounts, hours of operation, etc.

To use Prolog, open a terminal window and enter the following command:

T:\APLAB\PHIL3750\ProLog.bat

This will load the Prolog software onto the PC and start Prolog.

Getting Prolog

SWI-Prolog provides versions of Prolog for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Free software licensed under the Lesser GNU Public License. Look under downloads.

About Prolog

A starting point is the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science Prolog repository.