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Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

cs.cmu.edu

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Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#11

Post by colomon »

mkirklions wrote: post #5

Do you call this Artificial Intelligence? I dont call this AI, I call this automation. I know AI is a buzzword, but unless something is trying to think, its not AI to me. What they are talking about seems to be automation through lots of code. But hey, I havent been keeping up with this field, not sure what people are calling this.

I dunno what it should be called (including the possibility that "AI" is exactly right).

I do know that I focused on AI in my electives for UMich's CS degree circa 1990, and from the sounds of it the AI I studied will have literally nothing in common with what is described as AI for CMU's new degree.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#12

Post by zitterbewegung »

mkirklions wrote: post #5

Do you call this Artificial Intelligence? I dont call this AI, I call this automation. I know AI is a buzzword, but unless something is trying to think, its not AI to me. What they are talking about seems to be automation through lots of code. But hey, I havent been keeping up with this field, not sure what people are calling this.

AI's curse is that once it becomes mundane people call it "automation".

I think that having a focused degree in AI makes sense. I think that AI has reached the level of maturity that a separate curriculum should be made for it.

Just as we had no distinction between computer scientists and software engineers we now face a world where AI and or Data Science require a different focus on education.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#13

Post by harveynick »

My undergraduate degree (from The University of Edinburgh) is Artificial Intelligence. I remember when I was visiting different universities in the UK back in 2000, Edinburgh was the only one I saw which offered AI as a "real" degree. Everywhere else it was a specialization which was tacked on in the final year of a computer science degree.

That seemed really odd to me then. Seems even odder now.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#14

Post by Ar-Curunir »

mkirklions wrote: post #5

Do you call this Artificial Intelligence? I dont call this AI, I call this automation. I know AI is a buzzword, but unless something is trying to think, its not AI to me. What they are talking about seems to be automation through lots of code. But hey, I havent been keeping up with this field, not sure what people are calling this.

See the curriculum here: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/bs-in-artificial-intelligence/curricu...

These are all standard ML/AI courses

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#16

Post by autokad »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #12
mkirklions wrote: post #5

Do you call this Artificial Intelligence? I dont call this AI, I call this automation. I know AI is a buzzword, but unless something is trying to think, its not AI to me. What they are talking about seems to be automation through lots of code. But hey, I havent been keeping up with this field, not sure what people are calling this.

AI's curse is that once it becomes mundane people call it "automation". I think that having a focused degree in AI makes sense. I think that AI has reached the level of maturity that a separate curriculum should be made for it. Just as we had no distinction between computer scientists and software engineers we now face a world where AI and or Data Science require a different focus on education.

My only thought on that idea is that it feels like an undergrad in AI is less useful in the sense that most AI positions prefer PHD over masters, let alone undergrad.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#17

Post by minimaxir »

sp332 wrote: post #2

What did they call it before? As the article mentions, CMU has been doing AI for a long time.

CMU CS undergrad courses do have an AI component (e.g. building a chess engine), but this appears to be a more formal classification.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#19

Post by epicureanideal »

epmaybe wrote: post #3

Seems like the university put a decent amount of thought into the program. I wonder whose brainchild this was, and pushed for it to be its own degree? Regardless, even if a student no longer decides to pursue AI research or employment after graduation, they still have a marketable skillset for a variety of jobs.

So others can also see the thought they put into the program, here's the actual curriculum:

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/bs-in-artificial-intelligence/curricu...

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#20

Post by RobertoG »

mkirklions wrote: post #5

Do you call this Artificial Intelligence? I dont call this AI, I call this automation. I know AI is a buzzword, but unless something is trying to think, its not AI to me. What they are talking about seems to be automation through lots of code. But hey, I havent been keeping up with this field, not sure what people are calling this.

Have you considered the possibility that what we call 'human intelligence' could result being only advanced automation?
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