schedule on this page is always subject to change.
This course has three different but complementary objectives (see unit descriptions):
Because this course is about a topic that is both central to human identity, and also disrupting the global economy, much of its content is necessarily a matter of controversy. For this reason the material is presented with a strong component of history of science. This is so you as students can understand and evaluate the biases not only of the lecturer, but also of other academics you may read. Bias is an intrinsic part of intelligence (as you'll learn in this course), the question is how to best cope with it. This course is consequently also about how academics and societies arrive at a set of material which we present to students and use in policy. Societies and universities are also cognitive systems, so this course is about itself, and your degree.
This unit is taught flipped classroom. This is partially in response to student reviews from the first five years, where students wanted more time to go over the lectures and to ask questions. It is also in response to the fact that the lecturer lives on a different continent. Most weeks there are two lectures to watch, generally on video, plus one quiz and one live discussion session. The time for the quiz & the discussion session add up to one additional hour. Some weeks there is only one video and one live tutorial for the coursework, or one or two live lectures where the video needs to be updated.
To make sure that everyone is keeping up with the videos, there
are quizzes. These are on moodle but at a fixed time, generally at
the beginning of the lecture discussion session. The quizzes
do not count for much of your mark, and you will drop your worst
two (of seven) of your marks. But they substantially
improved performance on the final exam last year, the first year
they were introduced.
This page is provided as a resource, mostly so you can find lecture notes and problem sets. There is also a moodle page associated with this course, which contains forums for support & is where you submit your coursework.You are responsible for reading thoroughly all communication from email, the moodle news forum, and the coursework specifications.
Week |
Lecture Topics (exact organization still subject to change) |
Coursework & Labs (courseworks due Friday at midnight, handed out Tuesdays in Lecture) |
First Lecture |
Special
notes |
1 |
Introduction,
Intelligence
& Sensing; Artificial Intelligence & Cognition. Lecture 1; Lecture 2 |
Coursework 1 handed out. | 5 Feb | Don't miss the first
lecture! Don't miss a first lab! Robot kits handed
out in the labs AFTER the first lecture, and we help you
with the software to program them there. No quiz this week. |
2 |
Action Selection; Cognitive
Architectures.
Lecture 3; Lecture 4 |
tuesday
quiz: 1-3 |
12 Feb |
This is a bunch of history,
but it's very relevant to your first lab as you think
about the achitecting your robots' mind. |
3 |
Perception, Learning, and Evolution. Lecture 5; Lecture 6 |
tuesday
quiz: 4-6 |
19 Feb |
We won't use learning much
in the labs, but we need to understand how it's used in
Nature, and how it should inform our Design. |
4 |
Evolvability,
Learnability, and Design–Perception for Robots; Science, Agents and
Spatial Simulations Lecture 7; Lecture 8 |
Coursework 1 Due Coursework 2 & Coursework 4 handed out tuesday quiz: 7, 8 |
26 Feb |
More advanced tips from Nature
on learning to learn; then moving on to thinking about
cognition as a social process. Quiz is just on learning, evolution, and design, not on agents or science. |
5 |
Social
Simulation and Social Structure. NetLogo Lecture 9; Lecture 10; |
NetLogo lecture live
Tuesday, 6:15, by Joanna Netlogo labs this week & next. |
5 Mar |
How AI can be used to understand
intelligence in nature; then moving on to thinking
about cognition as a social process. No quiz this week. |
6 |
Hypothesis
Testing and Evidence; Multiple Conflicting Goals: Intro to Game AI Lecture 11; Lecture 12 |
tuesday quiz 10-12 |
12 Mar |
This week makes sure you have what you need
to write up your CW2, and then introduces the concepts for
CW3. Quiz is on science and social simulations, not
game AI and hypothesis testing, but will discuss this
week's lectures in flipped classroom Tuesday, especially
multiple conflicting goals because that leads into ethics. |
7 |
Likeability,
Believability
&
Engagement; BUNG
and ABOD3 Lecture 13; Lecture 14 |
Game AI lecture Tuesday 6:15pm by
Andreas Game AI labs this week & after break Coursework 2 due TUESDAY Coursework 3 handed out |
19 Mar |
The lectures for Game AI
also bridge you into human-like behaviour, which will be
core for thinking about ethics. Who do you put first,
yourself or your team's goals? There's no simple answer. No quiz this week. (But watch the Likeability lecture some time, it's really useful for understanding commercial game AI, may crop up in 17 April quiz.) |
Break | ||||
8 |
Culture, Language &
Cognition: I & II Lecture 15 & 16 (double lecture) |
Friday quiz 13, 15, 16 |
9 Apr |
Regular
lectures, not video! Quiz after
Friday's lecture. Language bridges between social
cognition, learning, and is core to human ethics. |
9 |
Emotions
& Intelligence; Mind &
Consciousness Lecture 17; Lecture 18 |
Code for
Coursework 3 due Monday. Labs mandatory! |
16 Apr |
Lab: Round-robin game
competition; if you can't make your lab you need to get
someone else to make your code run for you (NOT
the tutors!) (Video) lectures ( |
10 |
Ethics & Society;
Politics & Regulation Lecture 19; Lecture 20 |
Coursework
3 writeup due Monday Quizzes Friday, 17 & 18, 19 & 20 |
23 Apr |
Regular lectures,
not video! (But one was previous week.) This
material probably affects your coursework least, but
your career (and life) most, of any of the
lectures. |
11 |
No Lectures (except Friday, sort of) |
Beauty Competition
Friday's Lecture; Robots must be disassembled by this week. Unless they win the beauty competition! |
30 Apr |
Labs this week are the (optional) beauty contest & game championship and the non optional disassembly of the non-winning robots (mandatory for undergrads; MScs can hold on to their robot if they are using it for CW4.) |
Rev |
Revision lecture 10 May? |
|
7 May |
Coursework 4 due for
postgraduates. |