CSC 190A/290A Course Description
This course explores the possibility of consciousness in machines, both in
the sense of perceptual awareness and self-awareness. Readings are from
the AI literature as well as from philosophy and cognitive science.
The course will begin with some general philosophical and cognitive science
readings, and then shift emphasis to representational and computational
aspects. Homework will include written answers to questions, essays,
and -- for 290A students only -- a project that involves Lisp programming.
The course will be suitable for writing credit. (4 hours, Spring).
190A Prerequisites: junior or higher standing;
290A Prerequisites: CSC 173 and one or more of 240, 242, 280 , or 282.
(See comments below.)
Lectures:
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:05a.m. to 12:20 p.m., in CSB 632.
Comments on Prerequisites
Students should meet the prerequisite requirements (junior standing for
190A, and at least one previous course in AI or theory of computation
for 290A) and should not undertake this course lightly. It is expected
to be a significant amount of work. The course has an extensive reading
list, and requires getting a broad grasp of philosophical, cognitive,
and AI issues pertaining to machine consciousness and self-awareness.
For 290A students, homeworks and the programming project will be
evaluated on the assumption that these students have previously
attained some programming maturity, and have previously been exposed
to basic AI topics such as computer vision, knowledge representation,
problem solving, language understanding, etc. However, students who
have taken a theory course such as CSC 280 or CSC 282 probably have
sufficient maturity in the more formal aspects of computer science to
be able to make up for lack of a prior AI course. The projects will
typically require the use of multiple source files and libraries, so
experience with programming utilities such as make and
rcs/cvs/bitkeeper is an asset.
Readings, Homework, and Grading
For 190A students, approximately 75% of the grade will be based on
5-6 homework assignments; 15% on about 3-5 quizzes (mostly very brief
pop quizzes, but the last one, on materials near the end of the course
for which no homework can be assigned, somewhat longer ~~ 20 minutes);
and 10% for participation.
For 290A students, the 5 or 6 homeworks will count as approximately
42% of the grade, the project as approximately 33%, the 3 or 4 quizzes
as 15%, and participation as 10%.
The homework assignments will ask you to answer questions and write
essays about the readings. These readings include several required books
and a number of technical articles. (In addition, 290A students will
probably be looking at some further scientific literature to help
with your consciousness project -- see below.)
Required books
One of the key questions we want to consider is whether consciousness
and self-awareness are dependent on having an organic, human-like
(or mammalian) brain, or whether they can instead be characterized
more abstractly, and realized in machines -- whose physical and
functional makeup might be very different. However, few books
concerned with this question have been written, so our sampling
is somewhat biased towards philosophy and cognitive science.
At least the following 4 books will be required reading:
Susan Blackmore, Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction,
Oxford U.P., 2005.
[An easily readable, entertaining yet quite comprehensive overview
of the riddle of consciousness and the various schools of thought
concerning it. Though one can question the conclusion that the
"stream of consciousness", and much else in our self-perception,
is an illusion, the book is an excellent place to start.]
Bernard J. Baars, In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace
of the Mind, Oxford U.P., 1997.
[A delightfully written book about consciousness, demonstrating many
intersting points directly in the text. Baars is a cognitive scientist
with a thorough knowledge of neuroscience, but at the same time with
a high-level perspective on brain functioning, of the sort that is
very congenial to an AI perspective. He proposes a blackboard-like
model, with a workspace serving as "the immediate memory system in
which we talk to ourselves, visualize places and people, and plan
actions." The global availability and global influence of the workspace
contents make it the "theater of consciousness".]
Jean-Marc Fellous & Michael Arbib (eds.), Who Needs Emotions:
The Brain Meets the Robot, Oxford U.P., 2004.
[Articles on emotion in humans and robots from various perspectives --
neurochemistry, functional anatomy of the brain, AI, robotics, etc.]
Drew McDermott, Mind and Mechanism, MIT Press, 2001 (paperback).
[This is a book on consciousness from an AI perspective -- the only
one so far written by an AI researcher. McDermott introduces some
basic AI/robotics techniques, and argues very plausibly that
qualia (basic sensory experiences) are the primitives
of the self-model.]
Additional readings may be chosen from the further books
list (see link below). This is likely to include some chapters of
Marvin Minsky, The Emotion Machine (Amazon.com 2006),
and possibly from Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop
(Basic Books 2007). (Fitting in the latter would require omitting
some currently scheduled chapters from Fellous & Arbib.)
Links to further books and to articles
The following are links to some
further books from which some readings may be selected (for you or
by you) and many of the articles you will
be asked to read.
Writing guidelines
For specific homework assignments, see Assignments.
You will be asked to answer questions in writing, and to write essays
of various lengths.
One kind of place to look for examples of the kind of writing to strive
for is in book reviews, in refereed journals, of some of the readings
for this course.
Typically, essays will be graded on 3 dimensions, roughly as follows:
- work, 40%: How much effort in terms of careful reading of the relevant
materials, thinking, analysis and writing has gone into the preparation of
of the essay?
- coherence, 40%: How well organized and defended are the thesis or theses
of the essay? The thesis (or perhaps 2 or 3 theses) should generally be
clearly set forth at the beginning, and convincingly developed and argued
for in the rest of the essay, and there should be brief concluding remarks.
Use direct, clear language, illustrate your points with examples wherever
possible, and be sure to use proper citation style. (Also, you are
reminded of the academic honesty guidelines, stated below, concerning
all materials taken from others, which must be clearly identified and
acknowledged.
For more detailed guidelines about good essay style/organization, see
the notes by Mark Andrews
(written at Cornell U. in 2001; he is now a researcher in the Psychology
Dept. at University College London); and the
notes by John Messerly
(U.Texas at Austin).
[By the way, John Messerly has a great reading list on
provocative philosophical issues and the future at
http://www.austincc.edu/jmesserl/ExtraCredit.html,
cool links at
http://www.austincc.edu/jmesserl/links.html,
and memorable, ever-relevant quotes at
http://www.austincc.edu/jmesserl/quotes.html.]
- Originality, 20%: This refers not so much to coming up with entirely novel
ideas, claims, or evidence (though that is welcome!), but rather to
the development of your own, personal critical/ constructive/ imaginative
perspective on the themes under discussion.
Project: Implementing a limited example of (self)awareness
As noted, approximately 33% of the work in 290A will be devoted to
a semester-long project, carried out in teams of about 1-3, developing
systems that show or simulate some degree of perceptual awareness,
emotional response, and self-awareness. All systems should have some simple
model of themselves in relation to their world, and should show some
limited ability to express themselves in language or logic, since this
is the most natural way to provide overt evidence of consciousness.
Examples of such systems might be:
- a simple agent moving about in a "grid world" -- a grid of pathways,
where the agent encounters other objects, perhaps including food
objects, harmful entities, helpful entities, etc.;
- answering questions about its own nature, history and the conversation;
- making comments and expressing emotions or aesthetic reactions,
in response to verbal or simulated visual inputs, or in the
context of some simple (interactive?) activity;
- self-knowledge: answering questions about what it knows and
doesn't know about ordinary things (people, places, and objects;
and possibly beliefs, events, etc.), and/or what it can and can't
do;
or some other topic you might suggest yourself (and obtain
approval for). Some basic startup code may be provided for
some of the above projects.
The 290A class will organize into teams of 1-3 students, and each
team will attempt to go as far as possible in demonstrating the
above sorts of capabilities. Team members will present one brief
status report to the rest of the class, with opportunities for
feedback. Final project presentations will be given near the end
of the semester, and reports on the projects will be submitted.
Attendance
Attendance is mandatory. Gaining an oversight of the various facets
of consciousness and the many perspectives on it are an essential part
of the course experience. The pop quizzes will likely be on material
covered in the previous class, as a means of documenting attendance and
attention. They could also refer to the content of previous unscheduled
discussions.
Essays and reports must be handed in in time.
Exceptions will be made only under the most dire of circumstances.
Academic Honesty
Student conduct in CSC 190A/290A is governed by the College
Academic Honesty Policy, the
Undergraduate Laboratory Policies
of the Computer Science Department, and the
Acceptable Use Policy of Academic Technology Services (see
especially sec. III of the full pdf document).
As in all intellectual endeavors, proper attribution of work is crucial
in the essays and project reports you submit. 290A students also need
to be sure to provide proper references to the software and documentation
they acquire for the project (naturally, describing any additions or
modifications they made). In your homework answers, essays and reports,
provide citations in standard form for any text and ideas taken
from other sources. Use of unattributed material is plagiarism.
Last Change:
16 January 2008 / Len Schubert