If thinking and intelligence are merely a matter of processing symbolic information, then computers should be capable of demonstrating such intelligence. Even before the world was aware of the importance of computers, work by Alan Turing in the 1930s and by John vonNeumann in the 1950s quickly gave rise to the captivating notion of thinking machines, artificial intelligence, or AI. From the 1960s and on through much of the 1980s, a strong debate arose between philosophers, psychologists, and computer scientists concerning the future of AI and its status. We find ourselves in the late-1990s with a much cooler debate and many unrealized predictions. But with the advent of more powerful desktop computing, the need to manage mountains of information and the creation of new computer architectures and environments the issue of AI seems to have reasserted itself.

Clearly, expert systems are the most mature and widely used commercial application coming out of artificial intelligence. In an expert system, the computer applies heuristics and rules in a knowledge-specific domain to render advice or make recommendations, much like a human expert would. Expert systems have managed to achieve fairly high levels of performance in task areas which require a good deal of specialized knowledge and training. Often they perform tasks which are physically difficult, tedious, or expensive to have a human perform.

With the development of the Internet and the World Wide Web, the word "intelligent" often gets used to describe fairly simple programs, called agents, that may contain a matching or comparing algorithm and which when forwarded from one server to another, look for data which will match and report back to the original sender whatever it finds. Often the word "intelligent" is added to a notion because there is no need for human intervention for a set of instructions to do its assigned task. Between the more difficult creation of expert systems and the simpler creation of Internet "intelligent" agents, there lies an amazing array of applications which may be considered under the general heading of artificial intelligence.

This course will attempt to examine a variety of these applications and theoretical notions that are currently considered as part of the "artificial intelligence" realm. The course will use the device of examining the capabilities of HAL, the Series 9000 computer from the Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke film, 2001, A Space Odessy as a focus to described the characteristics which were envisioned in the late 1960s to characterize the best possible outcome of artificial intelligence research.

More specific course objectives include:

* to develop informed opinions about the present and past opinion leaders in the artificial intelligence debate.

* to develop a broad understanding of several capabilities currently pursued under the umbrella of artificial intelligence-e.g., speech recognition, vision, natural language understanding, chess and game playing, expert systems, etc.

* to develop a series of Web pages that will serve as a current "state of the art" review of the various AI application areas, e.g., AI in law, medicine, education, data mining, etc. These areas are be suggested below by the instructor but they can be suggested by participants.

Midterm Quiz over textbook readings 30%

Web-based Presentation of Selected AI Topic Area to the class 30%

Critical Book Review (please discuss your choice with the instructor) 20%

Class discussion leader for Selected AI topic 20%

Stork, David G., ed. HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality .

Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, c1997.

Cawsey, Alison. The Essence of Artificial Intelligence. New York: Prentice Hall, c1998.

Artificial Intelligence Center Publications, SRI International

http://www.ai.sri.com/pubs/

University of Illinois, Beckman Institute AI Group

http://www-ilg.ai.uiuc.edu/index.html

Artificial Intellgience Journals listing

http://ai.iit.nrc.ca/ai_journals.html

World Wide Web Virtual Library: Artificial Intelligence

http://www.cs.reading.ac.uk/people/dwc/ai.html

 

Date	Reading/Assignment	Topic	Leaders
T July 14	Stork, Chap. 1 & Chap 2 Cawsey, Chaps. 1-2	Course overview-2001's HAL: Getting Reacquainted	.
W July 15	.	Basic approaches to knowledge representation in AI	.
Th July 16	.	A simple history of cognitive science	.
T July 21	Stork, Chaps. 3-4	Reliable Computing, Fault Tolerance & Supercomputing	Shayne Knapp
W July 22	Stork, Chap 5 Cawsey, Chap 4	Chess & Game playing	Susan Bravenec
Th July 23	Stork, Chap. 6-7	Speech Production & Recognition	Erin Rhodes and Marty Trevino
T July 28	Stork, Chap. 8 Cawsey, Chap 5 Handout: Take home Midterm	Natural Language Processing	Apryl Ferrell, Magan Stephens and Jeff Steely
W July 29	Stork, Chap. 9 Cawsey, chap 3	Expert systems and "Common Sense"	Jerry Trapidor, Kimbol Soques and Deva Brown Common Sense vs. Expert Systems
Th July 30	Stork, Chap. 10 Cawsey, Chap 6	Computer Vision	Danny McCoy, Judy Schober-Newman and Yeonsuk Lee
T Aug 4	Stork, Chap. 12 Due: Take Home Midterm	Design Issues and Human Computer Interaction	G. Marc Turner, Matt McGrievy and Mary Mitchem
W Aug 5	Stork, Chap 13 & Chap. 16 Cawsey, Chap. 8	Emotion & Computing Interactive Agents	Interactive Agents--Holly Siskovic and Lynda Abbot and Jennifer Morley Emotion & Computing--Heather Rider, Jay Forbes and Andrea Forte Online Links
Th Aug 6	Stork, Chap. 15 Cawsey, Chap. 7 Due: Critical Book Review	Complex Systems	Rod Pollock
T Aug 11	.	Student Presentations	.
W Aug 12	.	Student Presentations	.
Th Aug 13	Due: Final Web Page Demonstration of an Application Area	Student Presentations	.

These are roughly 20 minute presentations of an AI application area. They should eventually (but no need by time of presentation) be provided as a full Website providing guidance to a new LIS student unfamiliar with your area of concentration. I have given you a potential list below, but you are free to chose topics of importance to you. These can be done singly or as a team effort. They should include some sort of handout or be available as a Web site so that the class can explore Web links to relevant information. These topics provide a way for the class to understand how some of the capabilities we have discussed are actually applied to the real world in some way.

Potential topics:

Intelligent Agents on the WWW/Shopping Agents (negotiating skills, profiling, filtering, etc.)

AI Applications in Law, Medicine, Stock Markets, Education

" " Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS)

" " Data Mining

" " Robotics

Lynda Abbott ldabbott@aol.com

Susan Brevenec sbravenec@aol.com

Deva Brown deva@tenet.edu

Apryl Ferrell aferrell@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

John "Jay" Forbes jforbes@mail.utexas.edu

Andrea Forte aforte@gslis.utexas.edu

Shayne Knapp sknapp@gslis.utexas.edu

Yeonsuk Lee yslee@mail.utexas.edu

Danny McCoy Dannym@mail.utexas.edu and/or Danny.McCoy@txexmta9.amd.com

Matt McGrievy mcg@gslis.utexas.edu

Mary Mitchem mitchem@gslis.utexas.edu

Jennifer Morley jennifer@gslis.utexas.edu

Rod Pollock rwp@mail.utexas.edu

Erin Rhodes erinr@gslis.utexas.edu

Jacob Richardson j.richardson@lycosmail.com

Heather Rider heather@gslis.utexas.edu

Judy Schober-Newman Judy.schober-Newman@twc.state.tx.us and/or

ClynJudy@aol.com

Robert Schuessler schuessler@mail.utexas.edu

Holly Siskovic holisko@juno.com

Kimbol Soques kimbol@mail.utexas.edu

Jeff Steely Jeffrey-Steeley@baylor.edu

Magan Stephens smegolz@utxums.cc.utexas.edu

Jerry Tapiador jmt@mail.utexas.edu

Marty (Martha) Trevino martre@gslis.utexas.edu

G. Marc Turner gmturner@mail.utexas.edu

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Reviewer	Title
Lynda Abbott	.
Susan Brevenec	.
Deva Brown	Great Sky River
Apryl Ferrell	The Grid
Jay Forbes	Mother of God
Andrea Forte	The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Shayne Knapp	Host
Yeonsuk Lee	Turing option
Danny McCoy	Building Expert Systems in Training and Education
Matt McGrievey	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Mary Mitchem	.
Jennifer Morley	Burn Rate; How I survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet
Rod Pollock	Bots
Erin Rhodes	Mind children: The Future of Human and Robot Intelligence
Jacob Richardson	What Computers Can't Do
Heather Rider	The Hacker and the Ants
Judy Schober-Newman	Artificial Knowing: Gender and the Thinking Machine
Robert Schuessler	.
Holly Siskovic	.
Kimbol Soques	Galatea 2.2
Jeff Steeley	After Thought
Magan Stephens	Mind Matters: Exploring the world of artificial intelligence
Jerry Tapiador	I, Robot
Marty Trevino	The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Marc Turner	The Memory of Earth