Schedule for The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
Fall, 2009
Week 0
Thursday, August 27
This is an academic advising discussion; some useful links are on the resource page.
Friday, August 28
Required reading: Computing
machinery and intelligence, A. M. Turing, Mind 59(236), October
1950 (also available in PAI). Concentrate on sections 1, 2, and 6.
You can skip or skim sections 3-5 and 7. No summarization homework.
Come prepared with some brief notes and questions about the reading.
Sunday, August 30
Required reading: the course syllabus.
No summarization homework. Come prepared with a few ideas about
the strengths and weaknesses of Turing tests. In class we will
attempt a practical demonstration of a Turing test.
Useful links are on the resource page.
Week 1
Monday, August 31
Required reading:
Thursday, September 3
Required reading: a repeat of Computing machinery and
intelligence, A. M. Turing, Mind 59(236), October 1950
(also available in PAI). Again, concentrate on sections 1, 2, and 6,
but skim the other sections to be aware of their
content. Paragraph summarization homework required.
Week 2
Monday, September 7
Writing skills discussion, focusing on thesis statements and
paragraph topic sentences. Required reading: WR Section C (pages
2-54).
Useful links are on the resource page.
Thursday, September 10
Required reading: Minds,
brains, and programs, John Searle, The Behavioral and Brain
Sciences 3(3) 417-457, 1980 (also available in PAI). Paragraph
summarization homework required.
Week 3
Monday, September 14
Library session 1, in the Information Commons Classroom, lower level
of the library. Materials are available on Moodle.
Wednesday, September 16
Compulsory academic integrity session, 6:00-6:45pm, in the
Information Commons Classroom, lower level of the library.
Thursday, September 17
Library assignment 1 due at 5pm.
Lecture on "the mathematical objection" and Godel's Theorem. No
preparation required. Lecture notes
are available.
Week 4
Monday, September 21
Required reading: Escaping from the Chinese room, Margaret
Boden. In Computer Models of Mind, 1988 (Chapter 8). Also
available in Moodle, and in PAI. Paragraph summarization
homework required.
Thursday, September 24
Writing skills discussion. Required reading:
- WR Section APA
(pages 415-450). Focus especially on sections APA-2 and APA-3,
but you must also be familiar with the other sections.
- Writing assignment 1.
APA citation
exercises are available.
Note: Start working on writing assignment 1 now.
Week 5
Monday, September 28
Required reading: Lucas, J.R. Minds, Machines and Goedel. Philosophy
36: 112-127 (1961). Two versions are available on Moodle. One is in
html -- convenient, because it is searchable, but unfortunately many
of the citations are messed up. Therefore, a scanned PDF of the
original publication is also provided. Bullet point summarization
homework required -- please see the description of
bullet point summarization.
A list of discussion
questions for class is available. For part B of
the discussion questions, you will need to refer to
pages
471-477 of GEB.
Thursday, October 1
Required reading: the "Contracrostipunctus" dialogue from GEB
(pages 75-81). Bring to class at least three questions -- these
can relate to something you did not understand, or something you
would like the class to discuss.
Note: Part of this class will be reserved for individual meetings
to discuss assignment 1.
Optional special event: Douglas Hofstadter will be speaking at
Gettysburg College at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 6. If you would
like to attend, please let me know by the end of Friday, October 2.
I will arrange transport to and from the talk.
Week 6
Monday, October 5
Read the following two magazine articles:
For each article, prepare a brief answer to the following
questions: Does this article increase your belief that machines can
think like humans? If so, why? If not, why not?
Note: Part of this class will be reserved for individual meetings
to discuss assignment 1.
Thursday, October 8
Writing assignment 1 due at midnight before class.
Visit from Careers Center representative.
Viewing of part of the movie "AI: Artificial Intelligence", and
discussion (no preparation required).
Week 7
Monday, October 12
Required reading:
- short story by Brian Aldiss, "Supertoys Last All Summer Long"
(available on Moodle)
- poem by William Butler Yeats, "The Stolen Child" (available on Moodle)
Bullet point summarization of the Aldiss short story is required.
Thursday, October 15
Library session 2, in the Information Commons Classroom, lower level
of the library.
Week 8
Monday, October 19
No class -- Fall Pause.
Thursday, October 22
Invited Speaker: Professor Gene Rohrbaugh, Messiah College.
Required reading: Allen et al., Artificial morality: Top-down,
bottom-up, and hybrid approaches, Ethics and Information
Technology (2005) 7:149-155. The article is available on Moodle.
Bullet point summarization is required.
Library assignment 2 due at 5pm.
Week 9
Monday, October 26
Discussion of art by M. C. Escher. Required preparation: look
through the Escher artwork in GEB (a list of all illustrations in the
book is on page xiv). Choose one Escher artwork that you
particularly enjoy or find interesting. Find at least one part of the
text of GEB that discusses the work you have chosen (the index could
be very useful here). If you can't find a discussion of the work you
chose, then choose a different work. Prepare a bullet point
summarization that briefly explains (i) why you find the work
particularly enjoyable or interesting, and (ii) why, according to GEB,
the work is relevant to the philosophy of artificial intelligence.
Make sure to include specific GEB page numbers in your bullet points.
Bullet point summarization homework required -- see the above
description for details.
Thursday, October 29
Watch and discuss excerpts from the movie I, Robot,
and discuss related writings by Isaac Asimov. No preparation
required. Resources for the in-class discussion include an
excerpt from
Asimov's introduction to the collection of his complete
robot stories, and an excerpt from his story
"Galley Slave".
Writing assignment 2 due at midnight before class.
Week 10
Monday, November 2
Required reading: Paul M. Churchland, Some Reductive Strategies in
Cognitive Neurobiology, Mind 95 (379), July 1986,
pp. 279-309. Skip over the math formulas; they are not important.
You can understand the main points of this article without following
any of the math. This paper is reprinted in PAI, and an electronic
copy is also available through the Dickinson library. Slide
summarization homework required -- please see the description of slide
summarization.
Thursday, November 5
Required reading: Chapter XVI of GEB ("Self-Ref and Self-Rep").
Read the entire chapter, but feel free to skim over anything that
depends on the details from the earlier chapters, especially
discussions of computer programming, math, or TNT. No summarization
homework is required, but you must bring to class a written list of
at least 5 examples of self-reference or self-reproduction that you
think are interesting. Be prepared to discuss them.
For our in-class activities, a summary of Hofstadter's
typogenetic code is provided.
Optional Clarke Forum event: Why are Japanese Cyborgs Always
Female? Sharalyn Orbaugh, Professor of Asian Studies and Women’s &
Gender Studies, University of British Columbia. Stern Center, Great
Room, 7:00 p.m., Thursday, November 5. There will also be a viewing
of the film Metropolis earlier in the week. See the Clarke Forum for details.
Extra credit opportunity: attendance at the above Clarke Forum
event can be used to gain credit for one missed summarization
homework, or half of a library assignment. To obtain this extra credit, retain the event program and
submit it at the start of the next class.
Week 11
Monday, November 9
Check out the website of the Personal Robots Group at
MIT. Browse some of their webpages to get a feeling for the kind of
work they have been doing. Then, go to their publications
page. Select one publication that looks interesting to you, and
read it carefully. Don't worry too much if it is highly technical
-- just try to understand the main ideas. Slide summarization
homework of your chosen paper is required.
Thursday, November 12
Required reading: Chapter XVII of GEB ("Church, Turing, Tarski and
Others"). Summarization homework is not required. Instead, come to
class prepared to answer the following question: for each of the 10
versions of the Church-Turing thesis given in this chapter, do you
believe the given version is true or false?
The following definitions will help you understand the reading:
- isomorphism: a fixed way of translating between one
formal system and another (recall the simple example given in
class, of an isomorphism between arithmetic written with two
different ways of writing the digit 7)
- FlooP: a simple computer programming language used for
some of the examples in GEB. You don't need to know anything
about this language, except that it can be used to program
computers.
- TNT: this stands for "typographical number theory". It is the
particular formal system that is used in GEB to describe
arithmetic.
Week 12
Monday, November 16
1. Movie discussion, based on movie selected by students
(Bicentennial Man). Preparation required: watch Bicentennial Man in
advance. A DVD is on reserve in the library from Wednesday onwards.
2. Writing workshop for assignment three. Annotated
bibliography must be submitted to Moodle in preparation for
this workshop. This bibliography must list the sources you are
planning to use, other than in-class readings. Each source should
be briefly summarized using bullet points, just as with our bullet
point summarization of in-class readings.
Thursday, November 19
Required reading: Chapter XVIII of GEB ("Artificial Intelligence:
Retrospects"). Summarization homework is not required. Instead,
identify one paragraph that you think is interesting or surprising.
Be prepared to defend your choice in class.
Week 13
Monday, November 23
1. Required reading: read this excerpt
from Making the Most of College by Richard J. Light,
Harvard University Press (2000). Read only the section "The
Power of Good Advice", which starts at the bottom of page 84.
Think about the following questions. Have you followed this
advice this semester? Will you do so next semester? If so,
what concrete steps would you take?
2. Writing workshop for assignment three. A slide summarization
of your essay must be submitted to Moodle in preparation for
these workshops. Your slide summary must follow the same rules as
the slide summaries for readings.
Thursday, November 26
No class -- Thanksgiving.
Week 14
Monday, November 30
1. Course evaluations
2. In-class discussion of CAPTCHAs. No preparation required.
3. Writing workshop for assignment three. Bring a printed draft of
your essay to class.
Tuesday, December 1
Optional Clarke Forum event: Virtual Popular Culture. Tom
Boellstorff, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of
Arizona. Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, December 1.
See the Clarke Forum for
details.
Extra credit opportunity: attendance at the above Clarke Forum
event can be used to gain credit for one missed summarization
homework, or half of a library assignment. To obtain this extra credit, retain the event program and
submit it at the start of the next class.
Thursday, December 3
Writing assignment 3 due at midnight before class.
Watch and discuss movie excerpts -- bring DVDs to class if you
would like to show a clip that you think is interesting and related
to artificial intelligence.