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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

#141

Post by ItsMe000001 »

deelowe wrote: post #9
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.

> additional course work in AI-related subjects such as statistics and probability, computational modeling, machine learning, and symbolic computation How is this automation and not AI?

To me "AI" means it learns by itself. Including the decision what to learn, and how. Having done quite a bit of statistics courses over the last few years (albeit with a focus on medicine/biology) and some of free the basic machine learning courses, AFAICS that is not the case, what and how something is learned is all decided and done by the human(s) in front of the computer, no? So, I don't see much "intelligence" - in the machine. Lots of it in those humans, of course.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#142

Post by komali2 »

mkirklions wrote: post #39
komali2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I've got a friend with a film degree pulling in decent money in Houston as a solo consultant (hiring contractors as needed (like me)), going from oldschool oil EPC to oldschool healthcare data analysis firms pitching "Big Data analysis" and "AI trained data modeling." Mostly it's plugging .CSVs into google's cloud platform tools, but sometimes I get to peek at some homebrew R or python modeling stu…

But this isnt AI. This is automation. I have done automation in python and I never thought it was AI.

Training an analysis model and then using it for further analysis is automation? Well then so is telling a programmer "find ways to add value to this company." Boom. Automation.

Mate no offense but I find semantics arguments super boring. The kind of work my friend does is exactly the sort of stuff they teach in AI courses. You wanna call it "bananabananafruitypoopoo" that's fine by me, "automation," sure, whatever.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#143

Post by learc83 »

fixermark wrote: post #119
learc83 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at your description, and compared the requirements myself. I'm even more convinced this is for publicity (or other political reasons). There's nothing there that couldn't have been done by very slightly altering the CS requirements. If CMU had done that instead, students would have the ability to take more AI classes, but they wouldn't be at a disadvantage if they decide (or need) to work in another field of…

CMU doesn't generally craft their degrees for industry-marketability; even the CS degree operates under somewhat of an assumption that they're training you to be a CS grad student or professor, not a software engineer. You can find your way out of that program without ever having touched C++, for example. I think you're greatly underestimating how much different the CS curriculum would become if they tore out functio…

>CMU doesn't generally craft their degrees for industry-marketability;

I don't think a CS degree should be a trade program, but avoiding actively harming students job prospects by adding a few more electives isn't quite the same things as crafting their degrees for industry-marketability.

>they tore out functional programming above 15-150

I'm looking at the requirements for the BS in CS right now. I don't see any function programming requirements above 15-150.

>OS, and Networking

It looks like neither is required right now. Here's the relevant section.

    Choose 1

    15-410: Operating System Design and Implementation

    15-411: Compiler Design

    15-418: Parallel Computer Architecture and Programming

    15-440: Distributed Systems

    15-441: Computer Networks

    Others as designated by the CS Undergraduate Program
> if they bent the CS degree instead of introducing a new AI degree, could higher-learning institutions continue to trust that a CMU CS undergrad had a solid foundation in functional programming, discrete mathematics, and systems theory?

Looks like the functional programming, and discrete math requirements are the same.

Systems is an overloaded word, so I'm going to assume you mean software systems, since that requirement is what is removed. The systems requirement is already just chose one from above list. I don't think taking 1 network class means you have a solid foundation of systems theory.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#144

Post by xtrapolate »

scott_s wrote: post #8

I think I now know how the electrical engineers felt in the '50s and '60s.

AI is large enough a field to warrant a new, dedicated track. In practice, as of current times, AI R&D/academia are enabled (perhaps even fueled) largely by the "traditional" constructs of computer science.

In my opinion, as time goes by and advancements are made, the coupling should grow weaker - and so we'll reach a point where there would be a more clear distinction between the two tracks, and they won't share much of the same curriculum, similarly to where we stand today with CS and electrical engineering.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#145

Post by zukzuk »

KSS42 wrote: post #139

University of Toronto Engineering also is starting a Machine Intelligence option: Engineering Science - Machine Intelligence Option http://engsci.utoronto.ca/explore_our_program/majors/machine... What is the difference between the Machine Intelligence major in Engineering Science, and an undergraduate degree in Computer Science? While there are some commonalities between the Machine Intelligence major and what is off…

I got my BSc at U of T, in Artificial Intelligence (and Cognitive Science)... in 2006. So ahead of the curve! This was right before the big deep learning explosion, at the very end of the last AI winter. Our lecturers spent a whole lot of time lamenting at the endless disappointments of AI research. I walked away deeply skeptical, and can't help but see the current ML hype as a glass half empty.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#146

Post by triska »

Personally, I find the lack of logic programming, and logic in general, a rather notable property of the outlined curriculum. In fact, "logic" is nowhere explicitly mentioned in the course titles. Neither are "formal" and "method".

For comparison, at the department of AI in Edinburgh, Prolog was very important and even actively developed to such an extent that current Prolog systems are still hugely influenced by "Edinburgh Prolog" (the original version being "Marseille Prolog"). Also, theorem proving is an important area of computer science with many connections to AI.

In Vienna (TU Wien), the related Computational Intelligence curriculum also involves a lot of logic, Prolog, constraint solving and formal methods, which play an important role in many areas of AI. It is a graduate degree though and assumes familiarity with many of the topics that are mentioned in this curriculum.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#147

Post by naeemtee »

KSS42 wrote: post #139

University of Toronto Engineering also is starting a Machine Intelligence option: Engineering Science - Machine Intelligence Option http://engsci.utoronto.ca/explore_our_program/majors/machine... What is the difference between the Machine Intelligence major in Engineering Science, and an undergraduate degree in Computer Science? While there are some commonalities between the Machine Intelligence major and what is off…

Ah, EngSci - the most freakishly difficult undergraduate curriculum on the planet.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#148

Post by aje403 »

joker3 wrote: post #96
aje403 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, consider the flip side as well. This is just going to inflate the bubble more and create more unqualified candidates. AI degree means they're going to be churning out candidates who don't know what tcp is or what context switch means. Also, the guy with the (graduate or PHD) AI degree from CMU, before this, handing you his resume, may have studied functional analysis and convex optimization in addition to l…

How many people really need to know functional analysis to practice machine learning? How many developers need to know TCP coming out of school?

You're reading that into my post. Most do not need to know functional analysis. Some absolutely should. My point is not that one needs to know functional analysis to get a machine learning job, its that one of the top AI institutions is decreasing the intellectual rigor of its "average output" in that domain.

I find it scary that you're asking the second question. I think any accredited university handing out CS diplomas should make sure their graduates know what TCP is, especially CMU, which will theoretically be sending its graduates to good companies

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#149

Post by dgacmu »

learc83 wrote: post #107
dgacmu wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just predetermined electives - it removes several of the CS upper-division breadth requirements to allow more depth in AI/ML/stats. (I posted a comparison below, so won't repeat it here.) It's a pretty decent change to serve the students who really want to push more on ML. The key thing to look at is what the CS major requires that the AI major doesn't -- in 8 semesters, you can only fit in so many classes.

I looked at your description, and compared the requirements myself. I'm even more convinced this is for publicity (or other political reasons). There's nothing there that couldn't have been done by very slightly altering the CS requirements. If CMU had done that instead, students would have the ability to take more AI classes, but they wouldn't be at a disadvantage if they decide (or need) to work in another field of…

As a CMU professor, in case it wasn't clear: We, in general, felt fairly strongly that we did not want to radically alter the meaning of a CMU CS degree, i.e., that our B.S. in C.S. students do come out with the degree having hit some depth in systems, in PL, in algo and theory.

We also felt fairly strongly that supporting students who wanted something different from their education, which still falls under the broad CS umbrella but is different in some important ways -- was important.

These things are surprisingly hard to juggle. Eight semesters, four courses per semester, juggling cross-university requirements, some amount of personal electives and fun, and an intensive set of major courses, doesn't actually leave much wiggle room, especially when you include the prerequisite dependency graph of those courses.

Hence, it's a different major, because it reflects a quite different set of skills that {employers, grad schools, whatever} can count on the graduate knowing.

(There's also value in providing a roadmap for sequencing these things, again because of the prerequisite chains, but I concur that that alone isn't a reason for a major.)

And yes, of course it's all a continuum. We call AI a separate major, alongside things like HCI and computational biology. We don't have an "operating systems" major. If you like systems a lot, you still have to take all the normal algo/PL/etc. breadth requirements.

It's all a judgement call. The feeling here is that AI/ML are starting to contain a sufficiently different set of core skills that it was worth breaking them out into their own major instead of just saying "eh, go take some electives, and try to fit in all of your interests while _still_ taking all the other CS classes." Because that's what we used to suggest, and the students rightly pointed out that it wasn't possible to do it right within the existing degree framework, at least, if you wanted to sleep.

Re: Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

#150

Post by aje403 »

fixermark wrote: post #123
aje403 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, consider the flip side as well. This is just going to inflate the bubble more and create more unqualified candidates. AI degree means they're going to be churning out candidates who don't know what tcp is or what context switch means. Also, the guy with the (graduate or PHD) AI degree from CMU, before this, handing you his resume, may have studied functional analysis and convex optimization in addition to l…

Having graduated with the CMU CS undergrad: if I could go back in time and replace about 80% of the language theory classes that were mandated by the curriculum with regression and machine learning modeling classes, hell yes I would. (And this is coming from someone who TA'd one of those language theory classes ;) ).

That I will agree with!
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