Discussion

• This class changed this year as I had to get rid of the exam. The old exams are still up, and the content hasn't changed, so I'm happy to discuss the basic theory and a range of machine learning techniques, knowledge represtation mechanisms, and AI theory.
• The readings are still there. In the past, even with the exam, many students didn't do the readings.
• However, since there isn't an exam, I've had to add a third coursework.
• The weight of the first and second courseworks have increased, (20->25%, 30-35%) and they are now due a bit earlier.
• I will also change the lectures so that there is more discussion of the courseworks.
• So, the first coursework is the travelling salesman problem. There are a bunch of cities, and distances between each. The task is to find the shortest path the goes through all of the cities and returns to the start.
• How would you describe a particular set of cities?
• How could you write a program that solved it?
• How could you write a program that solved it quickly?