The course is dedicated to technical aspects of Artificial Intelligence, introducing the main paradigms, methods and application areas as well as discussions of legal, societal, economical, ethical, and philospical aspects. En studerende, der fuldt ud har opfyldt kursets mål, vil kunne:

• Explain concisely the scope of AI, its potential for society as well as its limitations
• Discuss contemporary applications of AI from technical, legal, ethical and economical perspectives
• Describe in overall terms the main paradigms of AI and explain their respective strengths and weaknesses
• Describe in overall terms the most prevalent methods in current AI and their respective application areas, strengths and weaknesses
• Explain the meaning of, and difference between, concepts often used to describe AI or parts of AI, including deep learning, machine learning, big data, cognitive computing, and artificial general intelligence.
• Explain the current and expected future impact of AI on different domains like transport, healthcare, education, entertainment, etc.
• Describe the main trade-offs in designing AI systems in terms of generality vs. scalability, flexibility/learnability vs. predictability/​explainability, etc.
• Explain the main characteristic differences between human and machine intelligence, and the potential in human-machine collaboration

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, in particular intelligent computer programs.” This definition of artificial intelligence by John McCarthy, the father of the area, is still valid today, 60 years after it was formulated. Nevertheless, the area is much harder to define and delimit than most other areas of science and engineering, since intelligence is many different things, e.g. social, linguistic or emotional intelligence, and at very different levels. Correspondingly, AI is many very distinct techniques to mimic different aspects of human intelligence, and at very different levels. This makes it difficult to navigate in the area of AI and understand exactly what it can and cannot do. One of the goals of the course is to clarify the different paradigms, methods and subareas of AI, to provide a clear picture of what AI is, to make it easier to understand the current developments in the area, and to understand the possibilities and limitations of AI methods in general.
AI is about mimicking the most essential abilities of humans, our cognitive abilities: perceiving, reasoning, planning, communicating, learning, etc. Hence AI has the potential of transforming our lives, society and businesses in a much more fundamental way than any other technology. Underlying and unifying the different methods in AI is usually the goal of making machines do what hitherto only humans have been able to, e.g. play chess, recognise faces, engage in a dialogue, drive a car or do medical diagnosis. The main source of inspiration for building AI systems that can solve these problems is human problem-solving. In some cases, AI systems are based on a very direct attempt to simulate the fundamental neurological processes of the human brain. In other cases, they are based on more abstract models of human reasoning and problem solving. However, it is important to understand that there still is – and probably always will be – fundamental differences between human and machine intelligence. These fundamental differences are essential to grasp in order to understand where AI techniques can succesfully be employed, what kind of human tasks can be replaced or enhanced by the use of AI, and how AI is going to affect the future job marked. These aspects will all be thoroughly covered in the course.
The course will address both the benefits and the potential negative consequences, including discussions of the legal, ethical and philosophical aspects of AI. 14. februar, 2023