Bio-Inspired Intelligence

thinking robot
Course Number(s): 
9.S915
Instructor(s): 

Semester: 

  • Fall 2018

Course Level: 

  • Graduate, Undergraduate
Class Days/Times: 
Thu 9:30am to 12:30pm
Course Description: 

This course is designed to tap into fundamental aspects of biological intelligence in better understanding the nature of intelligence and designing the next generation intelligent systems. Unlike the traditional human-engineered, biological systems use adaptive, reactive, and distributed computation to learn about the environments and behave accordingly. The course starts with the fundamentals of biological computations, i.e. information, nature of computation, foundations of complex systems, and the algorithmic view of life. In the second phase, students will study different forms of biological computation and intelligence.  The course is designed to step through different forms of biological intelligence, starting with simple systems and eventually reaching the neural systems and how some of the primitive forms of computation are harnessed in higher level systems.  This course has a multi-disciplinary nature. It is designed based on concepts from biology, computation and physics and as a result will be of interest to students with diverse backgrounds.