This course follows Norvig and Russell in introducing AI through the design and building of intelligent agents. It includes introduction to, and significant development in, Common Lisp (some coverage of Prolog and theorem-provers is also provided). The course seeks to explain AI as a set problems, techniques, formalisms, and algorithms; AI is not the same as, nor is it to be inseparably joined with, any particular programming language. Some of the instructor's research in AI will be interjected into the course material.1 For on-site students, class discussion is encouraged; attendance is mandatory.
If any course can be interesting and fun, it has to be Intro to AI. AI of today was sci fi yesterday; sci fi today is AI tomorrow. HAL started out as purely a creature of fiction; today NASA aims at building an ``immobot" (stationary AI that controls a large structure) with many of the same powers and abilities (but hopefully without the same defects!). What Deep Blue has done is something people have dreamed about for centuries, in some cases unsure about whether such an accomplishment was even possible.2 Arguably the Information Age is at bottom simply the ascension of AI, and the systems it produces.