This quarter's 590a seminar is going to be a series of discussions and talks about big debates, successes, and failures in the history of AI. Our primary goal is to get students excited about their work by giving them a historical perspective on current research in AI.

We'll be discussing topics like these:

What are the big debates in AI (e.g. statistical vs. logical)?

What is an ambitious project but failed project from the past that we are better suited to tackle now?

What is behind the hype of things like big data, deep learning, and nonparametric Bayes?

Format

Each week, a disucssion leader will pick a topic and find some good reading material. They'll be responsible for summarizing the topic (10-15 minutes) and moderating a discussion. To keep things informal, the discussion leader should come equipped with questions and talking points, but no slides.

Schedule and Readings

Possible Topics

Here are some suggestsions for discussion topics, as well as resources to where good topics may be lurking.