IDST-010-06: Artificial Intelligence: From NAND to Consciousness

Fall 2014

Contents

• Where, When, Who
• Description
• Learning Goals
• Policies
• Assignments and Grading
• Materials: Readings, Videos, and Links
• Schedule
• Other Interesting Links

My seminar policies are designed to supplement the University's Undergraduate Honor System and the CS Department's Honor Policy. However, unless otherwise stated when I distribute an assignment, the following is the default for all assignments for my Ignatius Seminar Artificial intelligence: From NAND to Consciousness (IDST-010-06).

Students must always follow proper scholarly practice for graded assignments. Typically, we do not have cite facts, common math formulae, or expressions of our own ideas, observations, interpretations, and analyses, but we must cite our reliance on the work of others. Students may be quite adept at and knowledgeable about citing and quoting material from traditional sources, such as books and articles. However, students may not realize that formulae, theorems, proofs, algorithms, and computer programs can require the same treatment as any other form of expression. For convenience, you do not need to cite conversations with me or information you obtain from class lectures and discussions, but you should cite the published course materials upon which we base our discussions. If you are unsure about what requires citation or what constitutes proper scholarly practice, please ask me during class, during office hours, or by e-mail. Students who do not acknowledge their use of resources to complete assignments may be in violation of my course policies and the university's policies on academic integrity.

The quality of your sources is important. Judging the quality of a source is not always easy, especially early in a scholar's career. Primary, peer-reviewed sources are best, especially for this class's short papers and research project. The Web can be a valuable research and learning tool, but since anyone can write anything and post it, you must be particularly critical of such sources until improving your understanding of what constitutes good practice in your field of study. (See the library's page on evaluating Internet resources.)

The following list details acceptable and unacceptable practices:

• You can:
• obtain assistance in understanding course materials (textbooks, articles, lecture notes, assignments);
• discuss verbally ideas and arguments for writing assignments with classmates and other people outside of the class, acknowledging any exchange that contributes to the ideas presented in the paper;
• obtain assistance with problem sets from me or from all members of the class either during class or using the discussion board;
• form study groups to discuss course materials and to prepare for examinations.
• You can obtain assistance only from me and the members of Georgetown's Writing Center for help with writing assignments in their written form.
• You can obtain assistance only from me:
• in writing solutions for problem sets;
• in completing exams.
• You can not:
• show or give a copy of your ungraded work in any amount or form to another student (unless the student works at Georgetown's Writing Center);
• see or receive a copy of someone else's ungraded work in any amount or form;
• attempt to gain access to any files other than your own or those that I designate and authorize;
• inspect or retain in your possession another student's work without permission, whether it was given to you by another student, found after the student discarded it, or accidentally came into your possession;
• collaborate with someone else outside of class on a problem set;
• use or present someone else's work as your own without attribution.

I am obligated to refer all suspected cases of academic dishonesty to Georgetown's Honor Council. If you have any questions about these policies or how they apply, please discuss such concerns during class, during office hours, by e-mail, or using the seminar discussion list.

In my experience, students at Georgetown do honest work. The small percentage of students who have submitted someone else's work as their own did so because they did not manage their time wisely. It is important to start working on assignments when I post them, to ask question in class, and to seek help from me. Indeed, as a Georgetown student, it is important to develop and strengthen your knowledge and skills of good academic practice. (Oxford has an excellent page on developing good academic practice.)

Policies dealing with late projects, cell phones, attendance, and inclement weather.

• You should submit all assignments before the deadline. For late projects, there is a letter-grade deduction for each 24-hour period after the deadline.
• You must take the final exam with your section and during the period designated by the Registrar.
• It is my job to maintain a constructive learning environment for everyone. Students bringing cell phones to class must either set the phone to vibrate, turn the ringer volume off, or turn the phone off completely.
• Attendance is not required, but there is a positive correlation between attendance and grade.
• It is fine if you must leave class early, arrive late, or leave the room to answer your phone, but you should do so in a manner that does not disturb your fellow students.
• If you miss class, it is your responsibility to get the lecture notes from your classmates and review them, after which I am happy to help you fill in any gaps during office hours.
• In the case of inclement weather that results in the university's closure, we will meet virtually during normal class times using Blackboard Collaborate.

• Problem Set #1, 10%, Digital Logic and Algorithms, Assigned M 9/15, Due M 9/29
• Problem Set #2, 10%, Propositional Logic and Probability, Assigned M 9/29, Due R 10/9
• Midterm Exam, 20%, R 10/16
• Writing Assignment #1, 10%, Assigned R 10/16, Draft M 10/27, Discussion R 10/30, Final F 10/31 Sa 11/1
• Writing Assignment #2, 10%, Assigned R 10/30, Draft Su 11/16 M 11/17 9 AM, Discussion T 11/18, Final F 11/21
• Final Paper, 20%, Topic F 10/24, Synopsis F 11/21 M 11/24 5 PM, Draft Su 11/30 T 12/2 9 AM, Final F 12/5 11:59 PM
• Final Exam, 20%, Sa 12/13 12:30–2:30 PM, ICC 102

• Connor, J. L. (1990). An Ignatian re-vision of the university. In Jesuit education and the cultivation of virtue, pages 1–13. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC. (Read before 9/2.)
• Perez-Hernandez, D. (28 March 2014). Taking notes by hand benefits recall, researchers find. The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Read before 9/2.)
• Mueller, P. A. and Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6):1159–1168. (Scan before 9/2; read if interested.)
• Stanley Video: The Great Robot Race (Watch before 9/2.)
• Watson Video: IBM's Watson supercomputer destroys all humans in Jeopardy (Watch before 9/2.)
• Jack Buffington's YouTube Videos:
• Digital Logic Playlist
• Logic gates
• NAND and NOR
• Elements of Algorithms.
• Priest, G. (2001). Logic: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford. (Read by 9/23.)
• Mitchell, T. M. (1997). Training examples for the target concept PlayTennis [Table]. In Machine Learning, page 59. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. (Read by 9/23.)
• Braitenberg, V. (1986). Vehicles: Experiments in synthetic psychology. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. (Ready by 10/7.)
• Thrun, S. (2010). Toward robotic cars. Communications of the ACM 53(4):99–106. (Read by 10/7.)
• Guidelines for Short Papers. (Read by 10/16.)
• Harvard College Writing Center. A brief guide to writing the philosophy paper, 2008. (Read by 10/16.)
• Merolla, P. A., et al. (2014). A million spiking-neuron integrated circuit with a scalable communication network and interface. Science, 345(6197):668–673. (Read by 10/21.)
• O'Shea, M. (2006). The brain: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford. (Read by 10/21.)
• Blackmore, S. (2005). Consciousness: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford. (Read by 11/4.)
• Giordano, J. (2014). Conscious Machines? Trajectories, possibilities, and neuroethical considerations (Read by 11/11.)
• Turing, A. (1950). Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind 59(236):433–460. (Read by 11/13.)
• Newell, A., and Simon, H. A. (1976). Computer science as empirical enquiry. Communications of the ACM 19(3):113–126. (Read by 11/18.)
• Searle, J. R. (1980). Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3(3):417–457. (Read by 11/20.)
• Dreyfus, H. L., and Dreyfus, S. E. (1988). Making a mind versus modeling the brain. Daedalus 117(1):15–43. (Read by 11/25.)
• Russell, S. J. and Norvig, P. (2010). Philosophical foundations. In Artificial intelligence: A modern approach. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. (Read by 12/2.)
• Bringsjord, S., Bello, P., and Ferrucci, D. (2001). Creativity, the Turing Test, and the (better) Lovelace Test. Minds and Machines, 11:3–27. (Read by 12/2.)

• Blackboard (Bb)
• Google Scholar
• Georgetown Writing Center

• Book: Logic in Action
• Audio/Video: Debate: Is the robot rebellion inevitable?
• Video: Elon Musk: With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon
• Video: Humans Need Not Apply
• Video: Gallery @ Calit2 - COLLABORATIONS WITH MY OTHER SELF, Harold Cohen
• Video: Tech Closeup: Music Professor
• Video: DARPA Grand Challenge: Stanford
• Video: Self-Driving Car Test: Steve Mahan
• Video: How IBM's Watson supercomputer wins at Jeopardy, with IBM's Dave Gondek
• Movie (Release 11/22/14): The Imitation Game
• Article: Artificial General Intelligence that plays Atari video games: How did DeepMind do it?
• Article: Why Is Our Sci-Fi So Glum About A.I.?
• Article: Is Artificial Intelligence a Threat?
• Op-Ed: What Machines Can't Do
• Article: How AI is Changing Our Lives
• Article: Forget Turing, the Lovelace Test Has a Better Shot at Spotting AI
• Article: Scientists have created the most realistic fake brain tissue ever
• Comic: Tic-Tac-Toe, compliments of Adam Orshefsky
• Peet's
• Fast Lane
• Red Bull

Copyright © 2019 Mark Maloof. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.