everything.study
CS 486

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Undergraduate

Winter 2026

Topics

  • Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
  • Uninformed Search
  • Informed Search
  • Constraint Satisfaction
  • Uncertainty
  • Bayesian Networks
  • Causal Inference
  • Intro to ML and Decision Tree Learning
  • Statistical Learning
  • Neural Networks
  • Deep Neural Networks
  • Sequence modeling, HMMs
  • RNNs, Attention and Transformers
  • Markov Decision Processes
  • Intro to Reinforcement Learning
  • Deep Reinforcement Learning
  • Policy Gradient and Monte Carlo Tree Search
  • Model-based RL and RL from Human Feedback
  • LLM Test-time Inference and Reasoning
  • Game Theory
  • Multi-agent RL
  • Image Generation

Readings

  • Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
    Stuart Russell; Peter Norvig · 3rd · assigned chapters
  • Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference
    Judea Pearl · 2nd · assigned chapters
  • Dive into Deep Learning
    Aston Zhang; Zack C. Lipton; Mu Li; Alex J. Smola · assigned chapters
  • Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction
    Richard Sutton; Andrew Barto · 2nd · assigned chapters
  • Deep Learning
    Ian Goodfellow; Yoshua Bengio; Aaron Courville · assigned chapters
  • Introduction to Artificial Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Chapt. 1 and 2
    scheduled reading
  • Uninformed Search: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sect. 3.1-3.4
    scheduled reading
  • Informed Search: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sec. 3.5, 3.6
    scheduled reading
  • Constraint Satisfaction: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sec 6.1-6.3
    scheduled reading
  • Uncertainty: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sect. 13.1-13.5
    scheduled reading
  • Bayesian Networks: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sections 14.1, 14.2, 14.4
    scheduled reading
  • Causal Inference: Causality (2nd ed.) Chapter 1
    scheduled reading
  • Intro to ML and Decision Tree Learning: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sec 18.1-18.4
    scheduled reading
  • Statistical Learning: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sec 20.1-20.2
    scheduled reading
  • Neural Networks: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sec 18.7, Dive into Deep Learning Chapter 5
    scheduled reading
  • Deep Neural Networks: Dive into Deep Learning Chapter 5
    scheduled reading
  • Sequence modeling, HMMs: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sec 15.1-15.3, 15.5
    scheduled reading
  • RNNs, Attention and Transformers: Dive into Deep Learning Chapters 9, 11, Deep Learning Chapter 10
    scheduled reading
  • Markov Decision Processes: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sections 17.1-17.4, Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction (2nd ed.) Chapter 3 and Sections 4.1-4.2, Dive into Deep Learning Sections 17.1-17.2
    scheduled reading
  • Intro to Reinforcement Learning: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Sections 21.1-21.3, Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction (2nd ed.) Sections 6.1-6.5, Dive into Deep Learning Section 17.3
    scheduled reading
  • Deep Reinforcement Learning: Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction (2nd ed.) Sections 9.4, 9.7, Deep Learning Chapters 6, 7, 8
    scheduled reading
  • Policy Gradient and Monte Carlo Tree Search: Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction (2nd ed.) Sections 8.11, 13.1-13.3
    scheduled reading
  • Model-based RL and RL from Human Feedback: Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction (2nd ed.) Sections 8.1-8.2 Ouyang, Wu, Jiang, Wainwright, et al. (2022) Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback, NeurIPS.
    scheduled reading
  • LLM Test-time Inference and Reasoning: Rafailov, Sharma, Mitchell, Ermon, Manning, Finn (2023) Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Model, NeurIPS. Rashid, Wu, Fan, Li, Kristiadi, Poupart (2025) Towards Cost-Effective Reward Guided Text Generation, ICML.
    scheduled reading
  • Game Theory: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.) Section 17.5, Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction (2nd ed.) Sections 21.1-21.3
    scheduled reading
  • Multi-agent RL: Caroline Claus and Craig Boutilier (1998) The Dynamics of Reinforcement Learning in Cooperative Multiagent Systems, AAAI. Michael Littman (1994) Markov games as a framework for multi-agent reinforcement learning, Machine learning proceedings. Junling Hu and Michael P. Wellman (2003) Nash Q-learning for General-Sum Stochastic Games, JMLR
    scheduled reading
  • Image Generation: Steins (2022) Diffusion Models Clearly Explained Steins (2022) Stable Diffusion Clearly Explained Mohebbi, Abdulrahman, Miao, Poupart, Kothawade (2026) Image-POSER: Reflective RL for Multi-Expert Image Generation and Editing, arXiv.
    scheduled reading
2015

Topics

  • Introduction
  • Problem-solving
  • Knowledge representation and reasoning
  • Uncertain knowledge and reasoning
  • Machine learning
  • Communicating

Readings

  • Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
    S. Russell and P. Norvig · typical reference
  • Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents
    D. Poole and A. Mackworth · typical reference
Sources