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<TITLE>Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy and History of Science Department</TITLE>
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<H1>
Artificial Intelligence (The history of ideas)
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<LI><A HREF="#Objectives">Objectives</A>
<LI><A HREF="#Syllabus">Syllabus</A>
<LI><A HREF="#Material">Course material</A>
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<LI><A HREF="../CourseAI/">Latest offering</A> <IMG SRC="../Images/flag_gr.gif">
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<A NAME="Objectives">
<H2>Objectives</H2>
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<LI>The objective of the course is to familiarise students with the subject of artificial
intelligence and its fundamental approaches and methodologies. The major approaches are
historically surveyed: classical centralised approaches that rely basically on logic and
tackle issues such as problem-solving, planning, learning, board games etc., as well as modern
situated, behaviour-based and distributed approaches that follow a systemic and algorithmic
methodology. Special emphasis is put on the topics that touch more generally on cognitive
science and philosophy of mind: Turing test and chinese room experiment, symbol systems and
symbol grounding, subsymbolic systems, connectionism, meaning of knowledge and representation
in the different approaches, autonomy, emergence, creativity, consciousness.
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<LI>At a practical level, the course seeks to have the students experiment with at least one
pre-existing system and realize the issues, theoretical and technical, involved in the design
of a system demonstrating a degree of intelligence or modelling an aspect of it.
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<H3>Instructor</H3>
<PRE>
	<B>Elpida Tzafestas</B>
	Associate Professor
	Cognitive Science Laboratory
	Department of History and Philosophy of Science (M.I.Th.E.)
	National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
	University Campus, Ano Ilisia 15771 Athens
	GREECE
	Tel. (+30) 210-727 5522,
	     (+30) 210-727 5506
	Fax. (+30) 210-727 5530

	<IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE SRC="../Images/mail.gif"> <A HREF="mailto:etzafestas@phs.uoa.gr"><EM>etzafestas@phs.uoa.gr</EM></A>
	<IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE SRC="../Images/www2.gif"> <A HREF="http://users.softlab.ntua.gr/~brensham"><EM>http://users.softlab.ntua.gr/~brensham</EM></A>
</PRE>

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<A NAME="Syllabus">
<H2>Syllabus</H2>
<UL>
<LI><B>Historical introduction to AI</B><BR>
History, Roots, Topics, Applications
<LI><B>AI and decision</B><BR>
Decision-making, Problem-solving, Reasoning, Games, Logic, Planning,
Behavior
<LI><B>AI and learning</B><BR>
Terminology, Problems, Objectives, Techniques
<LI><B>Distributed intelligence</B><BR>
Blackboards, Distributed AI, Multi-agent systems, Minsky
<LI><B>Proto-intelligence</B><BR>
Cambrian intelligence, Animats, Artificial life, Complex systems
<LI><B>General theories of AI</B><BR>
Newell, Pitrat, Sloman, Minsky
<LI><B>Theoretical and methodological issues</B><BR>
Turing/Searle, Weak or strong AI, Grounding, Embodiment/Situatedness, Representations
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<A NAME="Material">
<H2>Course material</H2>
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<LI>Lecture slides
<LI>Readings (papers and chapters)
<LI>Exercises with solutions
<LI>Excerpts from "Society of Mind" (by M. Minsky)
</UL>
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<H2>Practical assignments (indicative)</H2>
<UL>
<LI>Braitenberg vehicles
<LI>Evolutionary robot simulation
<LI>Domino player
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Snapshot:
<A HREF="DominoPlatform.jpg"><IMG SRC="DominoPlatform.jpg" WIDTH=70 HEIGHT=50
ALIGN=CENTER></A>
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<EM>Page last updated 09 March 2012</EM><BR>
<A HREF="mailto:etzafestas@phs.uoa.gr">
<EM>Send me mail (etzafestas@phs.uoa.gr)</EM></A><BR><BR>

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