Natural and Artificial Intelligence
NYU CAS Collegiate Honors Seminar FRSEM 532
Wednesdays 12:30–3:00 p.m.
Tisch Hall, 40 West Fourth Street, Room LC15
Fall 2013
Professor Gary Marcus
Meyer 306, 212-998-3551
Gary.Marcus@nyu.edu
office hours: by appointment (email to set up a time)
Who's smarter? Siri or Einstein? Is a "Singularity" imminent? Through readings in psychology, philosophy,
neuroscience, and computer science, we will compare brains and computers, their relative strengths and
weaknesses, and the prospects for human-level artificial intelligence. Topics include language, vision,
game-playing, robotics, common-sense reasoning, and computational creativity.
Requirements
This is an honors seminar, with substantial reading and writing requirements, including the following
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weekly readings
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a short essay (1200 words), due October 2d, in the style of http://tinyurl.com/gfmtny
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a 1 page preliminary proposal for a final paper (due October 30th, by E-MAIL).
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a 2-page outline for the a final paper, and list of sources(due November 20th, by E-MAIL).
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a class presentation
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a final presentation, on your final paper (
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a final paper, due December 18th noon, via email, 10-12 pages
Late assignments will not be accepted.
Grading (approximately):
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
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preparation for and participation in seminars
class presentation
short essay
final paper topic & outline
final presentation
final paper
,
,
10%
10%
10%
10%
20%
40%
This seminar meets only once a week, so I take it for granted that all students attend all seminars except in
case of dire circumstances.
Calendar – Preliminary version, subject to change
9/4/2013 Introduction
9/11/2013 How Computers Work
Before class
http://www.mathsisfun.com/binary-number-system.html
http://www.mathsisfun.com/binary-digits.html
How a CPU is Made
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/bytes.htm
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/boolean.htm
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question717.htm
in class, we will watch and discuss
See How Computers Add in One Lesson
See How the CPU Works in One Lesson
Larry Wall: Computer Programming in 5 Minutes
9/18
Are brains computers?
Gallistel, C. R. (1998). Brains as Symbol Processors: The Case of Insect
Navigation. In S. Sternberg & D. Scarborough (Eds.), Conceptual and
methodological foundations. vol 4 of An invitation to cognitive science. 2nd
ed (2 ed., Vol. 4, pp. 1-51). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shenoy, K, Recording From Many Neurons Simultaneously: From
Measurement To Meaning. To appear in Marcus, G and Freeman, J
(Eds) The Future of The Brain: Essays By The World's Leading
Neuroscientists, Princeton University Press, 2014 [On NYU Classes
Site]
Marcus, TBA
9/25 Philosophy of Minds and Machines
Guest lecture: Ned Block
David Braddon-Mitchell and Frank Jackson “Four Challenges to
Functionalism”, pages 107-128 of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition, 2nd
Edition, Blackwell. [on NYU Classes site]
Turing, Alan (October 1950), "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", Mind
LIX (236): 433–460,
10/2 Games
Readings TBA
Student presentations: Chess, Go,
Jeopardy, Checkers, Poker, Unreal
Tournament 2004,
1st paper due
10/9/13 Language
Readings TBA
Student presentations: Siri, Google
Translate, Speech-recognition
10/16 Common Sense
Davis, E. Automating Common Sense (except § 1.12), excerpt from E.
Davis Representations of Commonsense Knowledge, Morgan Kaufmann,
1990.
Levesque, Hector (2013) Our Best Behavior in IJCAI 13.
Guest lecture: Ernest Davis
10/23 Machine Vision
Readings TBA
Guest lecture: Yann Lecun
10/30 Creativity
Student Presentations: Emily
Howell,
TBA
Paper topics due, will be discussed in class
11/13/13
Consciousness
Student Presentations: IIT, Against
IIT; Global Workspace
Block in The Future of the Brain
Chalmers, D 1995 Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, Journal of
Consciousness Studies 2(3):200-19.
11/20/13
Singularity & Ethics
TBA by Kurzweil and Allen
Marcus, G. Moral Machines
TBA by Anders Sandberg
Outline of paper & sources due; will be discussed in class
11/27/13
Thanksgiving
12/4/13
Class Presentations, A-M
12/11/13
Class Presentations, N-Z
Student Presentations: Kurzweil,
Allen, Kapor
Presentations
Date
Topic
October 2
Chess
October 2
Go
October 2
Jeopardy
October 2
Checkers
October 2
Poker
October 2
Unreal Tournament 2004
October 9
Siri
October 9
October 9
Speech-recognition
(Dragon/Nuance)
Google Translate
October 30
Emily Howell
October 30
Computer humor
October 30
Synthetic Gastronomy?
November 13
November 13
IIT (consciousness
theory)
Against IIT
November 13
Global Workspace
November 20
Ray Kurzweil
November 20
Mitch Kapor
November 20
Paul Allen
Presenter