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Posted by vismit2000 14 hours ago

10-202: Introduction to Modern AI (CMU)(modernaicourse.org)
207 points | 45 comments
aanet 11 hours ago|
> AI Policy for the AI Course

“ Students are permitted to use AI assistants for all homework and programming assignments (especially as a reference for understanding any topics that seem confusing), but we strongly encourage you to complete your final submitted version of your assignment without AI. You cannot use any such assistants, or any external materials, during in-class evaluations (both the homework quizzes and the midterms and final).

The rationale behind this policy is a simple one: AI can be extremely helpful as a learning tool (and to be clear, as an actual implementation tool), but over-reliance on these systems can currently be a detriment to learning in many cases. You absolutely need to learn how to code and do other tasks using AI tools, but turning in AI-generated solutions for the relatively short assignments we give you can (at least in our current experience) ultimately lead to substantially less understanding of the material. The choice is yours on assignments, but we believe that you will ultimately perform much better on the in-class quizzes and exams if you do work through your final submitted homework solutions yourself.”

ashertrockman 2 hours ago||
It feels downstream of CMU's "reasonable person principle". They know that people are going to use AI on their homework, but they trust that they want to learn and improve their skills -- and this is good advice for doing so.

I'm somewhat biased because I was involved in a previous, related course. The important takeaways aren't really about gritty debugging of (possibly) large homework assignments, but the high-level overview you get in the process. AI assistance means you could cover more content and build larger, more realistic systems.

An issue in the first iteration of Deep Learning Systems was that every homework built on the previous one, and errors could accumulate in subtle ways that we didn't anticipate. I spent a lot of time bisecting code to find these errors in office hours. It would have been just as educational to diagnose those errors with an LLM. Then students could spend more time implementing cool stuff in CUDA instead of hunting down a subtle bug in their 2d conv backwards pass under time pressure... But I think the breadth and depth of the course was phenomenal, and if courses can go further with AI assistance then it's great.

This new class looks really cool, and Zico is a great teacher.

piker 9 hours ago|||
My money is on extraordinarily poor final exam results and/or cheating.
khannn 8 hours ago||
In my day professors said that you'd never have an AI in your pocket
_joel 6 hours ago|||
but can I write 5318008 on my AI?
piker 7 hours ago|||
True. Why even bother with school anyway?
linhns 10 hours ago||
This is the way it should be. AI to speed up the understanding process, and one final evaluation without any help to cement the understanding.
topherhunt 8 hours ago|||
I don't think the final evaluation is to "cement the understanding" so much as _verify_ that students have taken accountability for their own learning process.
aanet 7 hours ago||
^ This

This is what a student, who truly wants to learn rather than simply complete a course / certification, would do... Use AI tools to explain + learn, but not outsource the learning process itself to the tools.

andsoitis 3 hours ago||||
> AI to speed up the understanding process

What’s your hypothesis of how AI can accelerate how your brain understands something?

wrs 1 hour ago|||
I have some success with this method: I try to write an explanation of something, then ask the LLM to find problems with the explanation. Sometimes its response leads me to shore up my understanding. Other times its answer doesn’t make sense to me and we dig into why. Whether or not the LLM is correct, it helps me clarify my own learning. It’s basically rubber duck debugging for my brain.
allthetime 3 hours ago|||
Quick, easy access to explanations and examples on complex topics.

In my case, learning enough trig and linear algebra to be useful in game engine programming / rendering has been made a lot easier / more efficient.

The same way Google or Wikipedia enables learning.

_345 4 hours ago||||
I disagree. I think we should treat AI tools like calculators for the exam.
somethingsome 5 hours ago||
I'm a little annoyed that 'modern AI' refers here only on LLMs, modern AI is way bigger than that.

Having said that, it's probably a good course, CMU courses are often great.

I was just expecting way more sota models in many fields due to the title.

If someone has this kind of ressource I would be extremely interested!

apavlo 5 hours ago||
For those that are unaware, the instructor of this is on the board of OpenAI:

https://openai.com/index/zico-kolter-joins-openais-board-of-...

neriymus 3 hours ago||
I started doing the free version of the course a few days ago - the lessons are excellent but what is even better are the homework tasks which allows me to run my tests locally!

It's sometimes easy to just listen and understand, but be unable to write the code myself - having this coding homework task has really helped me solidify this new knowledge.

10/10 would recommend

gabrieledarrigo 11 hours ago||
Do you think this is a good course? Or, what do you suggest as a structured course to learn how LLMs work?
teleforce 6 hours ago||
I hope the instructor will publish a textbook to support and accompany the course, will buy in a heartbeat.
mold_aid 10 hours ago||
Can't wait for postmodern AI.
blackoil 8 hours ago|
How to flip burgers better than an AI robot!
aanet 7 hours ago||
:) Too true

But tbh, it'll more likely be repairing those burger flippin' robots

sim04ful 12 hours ago||
Nothing on symbolic reasoning ?
cultofmetatron 12 hours ago||
I believe that would be part of whats now "classical ai"
cubefox 7 hours ago||
It's called GOFAI, or not AI at all. It's basically all machine learning nowadays.
Barbing 3 hours ago||
good old-fashioned artificial intelligence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOFAI

xdavidliu 10 hours ago|||
that would be the exact opposite of modern
chvid 10 hours ago|||
No. That will be covered by the Post-modern AI course in the fall semester.
leonvoss 6 hours ago||
That's not AI.
DonaldFisk 2 hours ago||
Why not? It was called AI at the time.
frankdenbow 7 hours ago||
thanks for sharing, these look great.
aboardRat4 11 hours ago|
Nice to finally see the revival of Lisp and Prolog.
DonaldFisk 2 hours ago||
Sadly, not part of this course, though Lisp and Prolog are very useful for other things. C's fine for building neural networks from scratch, and you can glue different subsystems together to make anything more complex than that using Python.
hearsathought 5 hours ago|||
Lisp and Prolog never really "vived" nor were they ever really gone/dead. So they can't be revived. They've always been there, in the background, in their niche. As they always will.
signa11 8 hours ago||
prolog in another skin is called erlang you know.