Phil356C / CS257 - Logic and Artificial Intelligence

Final Project Guidelines

Timeline
• February 20: You should have settled on a project, preferably after consulting with me.
• March 6: Please submit a progress report, answering the following questions:
– What have you done so far?
– What have been the most challenges parts of your project so far?
– What do you still plan to do before the end of the quarter?
• March 13, 15: In class we will have presentations of projects. There is no set format; they
may include slides, chalk, demonstrations, etc.—whatever you feel will be most effective in
communicating what you have done and learned. The amount of allotted time is TBD.
• March 21 at noon: The final paper is due, to be submitted in PDF on Canvas.

Topics
Projects may be on any topic related to logic and artificial intelligence. There are three categories
of projects, which will be suitable for students with different backgrounds:

1. The first is an implementation project, either of some existing algorithm or idea related to
one of the topics we covered, or of your own idea for how to use logical methods in AI. You
are welcome to look at systems we have or have not covered (e.g., SEMPRE (with tutorial
here), Felix, Blog, ProbLog, NaturalLI, Lean, etc.), if you would like to use “off-the-shelf”
software. I am also happy to help you find topics or research papers that should be relatively
straightforward to implement. The paper should explain a clear problem, the proposed solution
(which may, but absolutely need not, be original), and the results. If data is involved, it would
be helpful to do at least basic data analysis and evaluation of results. You may also provide a
short review of related work, and how what you have done would relate to existing systems.

2. The second is a logic paper, in which a new result is proven, or in which a known result is
analyzed and presented clearly. A number of open problems have been and will be mentioned
throughout the quarter (e.g., axiomatizing default logic, etc.) and you may think of many
more. Progress on one of these, even without a full solution, would be more than sufficient.
Working through a difficult proof of a known result (e.g., the complexity analysis of PDL)
would also be appropriate. A paper in this category should read somewhat like a paper in a
typical logic journal (e.g., Journal of Logic and Computation).

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 3. The third possibility is to write a philosophical paper about one of the topics we have covered in
class. The paper should make significant contact with at least one of the formal systems we have
discussed. Possible topics in this category could include: similarity-based vs. structure-based
counterfactuals, deontic reasoning in default logic, temporal ontology, logic vs. probability,
and many others. Papers in this category should be graduate-level work of the sort that would
be appropriate for professional philosophy journals (though it need not yet be publishable).
These will be held to particularly high standards relative to the other project categories.

If there is some way of combining the project with research you are already doing (or would like to
do), this is especially encouraged. Projects may be in groups of one to three. Groups of more than
one should include explanation of what each member of the team contributed toward the project.

Format
There is no strict format or page requirement, but I would expect roughly 8 pages in the AAAI style
file (which I encourage you to use), or 15 (1.5 spaced) pages if you are using a standard text editor.
The result should demonstrate thorough understanding of a topic in logic and AI, broadly construed.