CMPUT 261 (Fall 2026)

Intro to Artificial Intelligence

Schedule

This schedule is subject to change as the semester progresses, but it will be kept up to date. Slides are linked from the lecture title. They will be made available on the day of the lecture.

wk Date Topic Readings & Milestones
1 Tue, Sep 1 Introduction: Course Overview
no labs this week
1 Thu, Sep 3 Search: Graph Search P&M §3.1–3.4
no labs this week
2 Thu, Sep 10 Search: Heuristic Search 1 P&M §3.6
Assignment 1 release
3 Tue, Sep 15 Search: Heuristic Search 2 P&M §3.7–3.8
Add/drop deadline
3 Thu, Sep 17 Uncertainty: Probability Theory P&M §8.1
4 Tue, Sep 22 Quiz 1  
4 Thu, Sep 24 Uncertainty: Conditional Independence P&M §8.2
5 Tue, Sep 29 Uncertainty: Belief Networks P&M §8.3
5 Thu, Oct 1 Uncertainty: Inference in Belief Networks P&M §8.4
Assignment 2 released
6 Tue, Oct 6 Supervised Learning: Introduction & Framework P&M §7.1–7.2
6 Thu, Oct 8 Supervised Learning: Calculus Refresher P §B.3–B.3.4, §B.5
7 Tue, Oct 13 Supervised Learning: Linear Models & Overfitting P&M §7.3-7.4
7 Thu, Oct 15 Supervised Learning: Bayesian Inference P&M §10.4, §8.6
8 Tue, Oct 20 Quiz 2  
8 Thu, Oct 22 Deep Learning: Neural Networks P §3.1–3.6
9 Tue, Oct 27 Deep Learning: Training Neural Networks P §7.1–7.4.1
9 Thu, Oct 29 Deep Learning: Image Data P §10.1–10.4.1, §10.5
Assignment 3 released
10 Tue, Nov 3 Deep Learning: Sequence Data P §12.1–12.2, §12.4, §12.6
10 Thu, Nov 5 Reinforcement Learning: Markov Decision Processes S&B §3.0–3.5
  Tue, Nov 10 reading week, no class  
  Thu, Nov 12 reading week, no class  
11 Tue, Nov 17 Quiz 3  
11 Thu, Nov 19 Reinforcement Learning: Optimality and Dynamic Programming S&B §3.6, §4.0–4.4
Assignment 4 released
12 Tue, Nov 24 Reinforcement Learning: Monte Carlo Prediction & Control S&B §5.0–5.5, §5.7
12 Thu, Nov 26 Reinforcement Learning: TD-Learning Prediction & Control S&B §6.0–6.5
13 Tue, Dec 1 Quiz 4 Withdrawal deadline
13 Thu, Dec 3 Reinforcement Learning: Function Approximation & Policy Gradient Methods S&B §9.0–9.5.4, §13.0–13.3
14 Tue, Dec 8 Multiagent Systems: Game Theory for Single Interactions S&LB §3.0–3.3.2
  TBA Final exam