Course overview

Introduction

Online Introduction to Artificial Intelligence is based on Stanford CS221, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. This class introduces students to the basics of Artificial Intelligence, which includes machine learning, probabilistic reasoning, robotics, and natural language processing.

The objective of this class is to teach you modern AI. You learn about the basic techniques and tricks of the trade, at the same level we teach our Stanford students. We also aspire to excite you about the field of AI. Whether you are a seasoned professional, a college student, or a curious high school student - everyone can participate.

This online class will make this material available to a worldwide audience. But rather than just watching lectures online, you will participate. You will do homework assignments, take exams, participate in discussions with other students, ask questions of the instructors, and also get a final score.

Basic and Advanced Tracks

This course is offered in two tracks. The advanced track is intended to be an undergraduate or early graduate level course, and you should plan on spending around ten hours a week or more on it. It will involve weekly homework assignments as well as a midterm exam and a final exam. In order to receive a statement of accomplishment for the advanced track you must take both the midterm and the final exam.

The basic track is for people interested in the material but who do not have time or would prefer not to do homework assignments and exams. You will be able to view the same lectures as the advanced track, and will have access to the homework assignments and exams after they have been completed by students in the advanced track but will not be scored on them. In order to receive a statement of accomplishment for the basic track you must stay active and continue to view material throughout the course.

You may switch between the tracks at any time, but be aware that while you are signed up for the basic track you will not have access to homework assignments or exams, and this will affect your score and eligibility if you decide to change back to the advanced track.

Video Lessons

Video lectures are the primary method for communicating content in this class. They are posted weekly, and are composed of many small chunks of 1 to 15 minutes in length. Professors Thrun and Norvig will cover key concepts of AI in these lectures. Lectures will be posted weekly for each topic, and you can view lectures at your own pace once they have been posted until the end of the course.

Quizzes

There will be online quizzes as well, which enable you to demonstrate your knowledge of the AI topics you just learned about. If you get a question wrong, no problem. Quizzes don't count towards your score. But you may find that you will be asked to watch specific videos that discuss certain mistakes you may have made.

Homework assignments

These are just like quizzes, but now your submission counts towards the score. Homework assignments will be available all week, and you must complete all the questions during the week they are available; otherwise they count for 0. We plan for a total of 8 homework assignments, of which your two lowest scores will not be counted towards your score. The remaining 6 assignments taken together will comprise 30% of your actual score. Answers for the homeworks will be available to everyone after the week is over, as well as your personal score on the assignment.

Programming is not required, however we believe it will be very helpful for some of the homework assignments. You may write code in any language you would like to (we recommend Python if you are new to programming) and your code will not be graded. For example, a question might ask for 6 answers to the same problem but with varied inputs or parameters. You are welcome to work each one out by hand, however writing a program might be both faster and give you a better understanding of how the algorithm works.

Homeworks must be completed individually, and while we encourage students to help each other learn, homework assignments must be your own work and not done with a group.

Exams

These, too, are like quizzes and homework assignments. But whereas the homework assignments only cover the material just learned the exams will go into more depth and may cover any topics taught in class so far. The exams are scheduled so as to give you extra time to prepare. You will have a 72-hour period to complete the exam. We chose 72 hours since the class is taught worldwide, so no matter what time zone you're in you can choose a time of day that works for you. The midterm exam will make up 30% of your final score, and the final exam 40%.

As with the homeworks, exams must be completed individually without the help of other people.

Asking questions of the professors

The course will offer a forum in which you can pose your questions directly to the instructors. You can also see the questions of other students in this class and vote on them. The instructors will answer the top-voted questions. So for your question to make it to the top of the list, you will have to ask a question that appeals to many other students.

Discussions

There will also be a general discussion forum, in which you can discuss questions and interact with other students. You are not allowed to post solutions to active homework assignment and exams here, but you are allowed to discuss the material covered in class; and you can of course pose questions. Once the answers to a homework assignment have been posted you are free to discuss them, as well as sharing any code you may have written.

Final score and statement of achievement

Your final score will be calculated as 30% of the score on the top 6 of your 8 homework assignments, 30% your score on the midterm exam, and 40% your score on the final exam. For those completing the advanced track you will receive your final score as a percentage as well as your percentile ranking within all those who completed the advanced track, and this will appear on your statement of accomplishment. The statement of accomplishment will be sent via e-mail and signed by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. We hope to have them digitally signed to verify their authenticity. It will not be issued by Stanford University.

Exceptions and late days

We understand that there are many issues that come up that may make it difficult or impossible for you to complete some homework assignments. The two homework assignments which will not be counted will hopefully help out in some cases. This record breaking class size is exciting but also comes with many challenges, and we simply do not have the ability to make exceptions about the exam dates for any reason. If 0.3% of our students were to have conflicts, we'd have to arrange 300 special exemptions - much larger than an entire normal class. Please accept our apologies if you miss an exam and remember you will still be eligible for the basic track.