Artificial and Natural Intelligence 🧠🤖
What does it mean for a machine to be intelligent, how does current artificial intelligence compare with animal intelligence, and should we be worried?
Instructor: Professor Venkatesh Murthy (vnmurthy@fas.harvard.edu)
Head TF: Lucy Lai (lucylai@g.harvard.edu)
Lecture: M/W 3-4:15PM | Science Center Hall E
Quick Links
- PDF version of the course schedule and syllabus.
- Course Preview Zoom Recording, where Prof. Murthy gives an overview of the course.
Week 1 - Introduction
Week 2 - The Building Blocks of Biological and Artificial Intelligence
- Jan 31
- Readings 📖 (The readings for this week contain largely the same material–you may elect to just read one of them)
- Lecture Notes written by a former GenEd 1125 student!
- Readings 📖 (The readings for this week contain largely the same material–you may elect to just read one of them)
- Feb 2
- LEC 4 Guest Lecturer - Jeff Lichtman (Harvard) 🎥
- Papers mentioned in Prof. Lichtman’s talk 📄
- PSET 1 handed out Covers lectures 1-4
- PSET 1 / no blank space / tex
- Papers mentioned in Prof. Lichtman’s talk 📄
- Section
- Section begins this week!
- Introduction, purpose of section
- Discussion: What is intelligence?, Marr’s levels, AI ethics
- Introduction, purpose of section
Week 3 - The Building Blocks of Biological and Artificial Intelligence (Cont'd)
- Feb 7
- Readings 📖
- Architectures of Neuronal Circuits (Please read at least page 1)
- Readings 📖
- Feb 9
- Readings 📖
- Using Neural Nets to Recognize Handwritten Digits (Read up to “Learning with gradient descent”)
- Readings 📖
- Feb 11
- PSET 1 DUE @ 11:59
- Submit PSET 1
- Section
- Activity: Neural circuits
- Activity: Neural network architecture
- PSET 1 help
- Activity: Neural network architecture
Week 4 - The Building Blocks of Biological and Artificial Intelligence (Cont'd)
- Feb 14
- LEC 7 How Networks Learn 🎥
- Slides
- Readings 📖
- Feb 16
- LEC 8 Guest Lecturer - Cengiz Pehlevan (Harvard) 🎥
- PSET 2 handed out Covers lectures 5-8
- PSET 2 / no blank space / tex
- Section
- Discuss PSET 1
- Gradient descent & backprop review
- MNIST demo
- Gradient descent & backprop review
Week 5 - Learning to Represent
- Feb 21
- No Class – President’s Day
- Feb 23
- Readings 📖
- Readings 📖
- Feb 25
- PSET 2 DUE @ 11:59PM
- Submit PSET 2
- Section
- Discussion: CNNs vs. BNNs, NN models of other brain systems
- Activity: Edge detection
- PSET 2 help
- Activity: Edge detection
Week 6 - Learning Complex Representations
- Feb 28
- LEC 10 Guest Lecturer - Doris Tsao (UC Berkeley) 🎥
- Readings 📖
- Readings 📖
- Mar 2
- Readings 📖
- Readings 📖
- Section
- Discuss PSET 2
- PCA, Invariant representations
Week 7 - Language in Brains and Machines
- Mar 7
- Readings 📖
- Readings 📖
- Mar 9
- LEC 13 Language and Machines 🎥
- Slides
- Readings 📖
- Mar 11
- MIDTERM DUE @ 11:59PM
- Submit MIDTERM
- Section
- Section OPTIONAL—Midterm office hours & help
Spring Break - Mar 12 to Mar 20
Week 8 - Learning to Act
- Mar 21
- Readings 📖
- Readings 📖
- Mar 23
- Readings 📖
- Readings 📖
- Section
- Discuss MIDTERM
- Reinforcement learning policies, Modeling addiction
Week 9 - Applications
- Mar 28
- LEC 16 Learning To Play Complex Games 🎥
- Slides
- Readings 📖
- Mar 30
- LEC 17 Learning How To Drive A Car 🎥
- Slides
- Section
- AI vs. humans in complex game play, Kalman filter
Week 10 - What Does The Black Box Do?
- Apr 4
- LEC 18 Mind-Reading 🎥
- Slides
- Readings 📖
Final Paper / Project Guidelines
- Apr 6
- LEC 19 Interpreting Machines 🎥
- Slides
- Readings 📖
- Apr 8
- PSET 3 DUE @ 11:59PM
- Submit PSET 3
- Section
- PSET 3 help
Week 11 - The Limits of Intelligence
- Apr 11
- Readings 📖
- Readings 📖
- Apr 13
- LEC 21 Human & Algorithmic Biases 🎥
- Slides
- Readings 📖
- Section
- Discuss PSET 3
- Human vs. machine biases
Week 12 - Reality?
- Apr 18
- LEC 22 Dreams in Brains and Machines 🎥
- Slides
- Readings 📖
- Apr 20
- Readings 📖
- Readings 📖
- Apr 22
- PSET 4 DUE @ 11:59PM
- Submit PSET 4
- Section
- PSET 4 help
- Final paper topic idea due to section leader this week
- Present 1 slide of your paper topic / rough outline
- Final paper topic idea due to section leader this week
Week 13 - Towards General AI & What is Missing?
- Apr 25
- LEC 24 Guest Lecturer - Josh Tenenbaum (MIT) 🎥
- Readings 📖
- Readings 📖
- Apr 27
- Course Summary & Feedback 🎥
- FEEDBACK End-of-year course feedback form
- Section
- No section this week!
- May 9
- FINAL PAPER DUE @ 11:59pm
- Submit FINAL PAPER