Introduces representations, techniques, and architectures used to build applied systems and to account for intelligence from a computational point of view. Applications of rule chaining, heuristic search, constraint propagation, constrained search, inheritance, and other problem-solving paradigms. Applications of identification trees, neural nets, genetic algorithms, and other learning paradigms. Speculations on the contributions of human vision and language systems to human intelligence.

In recent years, this course has been enhanced with several “right-now talks” by guest speakers that introduce students to exciting up-to-the-minute research at MIT. This program has included talks by CBMM faculty Matt Wilson, Ed Boyden, Nancy Kanwisher, Shimon Ullman, and Boris Katz.