Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

PGP 4th Term 2019-20

Artificial Intelligence Applications for Managers (AIAM)

Instructor: Rahul De’, Ph.D.

Credits: 3
Introduction
In February 2011, IBM Corporation’s Watson program won a spectacular general
knowledge quiz contest called Jeopardy! on prime time television in the USA. The
program was pitted against two of the most successful human champions of the game,
and its victory marked a turning point in the perception of AI by people around the world.
Another team by IBM had beaten the world chess champion, Gary Kasparov, in 1997,
and that too had caused a media stir. Watson’s victory was remarkable because the
program had to recognize the clues in English language and respond as fast as the human
players on a wide range of topics, a task that is very difficult even for ordinary people.
Later in 2011, the Computer Science Department of Stanford University offered
their core AI course, meant for Computer Science students, on the Internet. Anybody
from around the world could register for the course, see the live lectures streamed over
the web, complete the assignments provided online and have them graded. The professors
offering the course were stunned by the response – over 160,000 people from around the
world signed up for the course, creating a record for online registrations for any course
ever offered in this format. Finally, over 20,000 registrants were able to complete the
course requirements and received a certificate from Stanford.
These episodes were a prelude to a huge and widespread interest in AI. AI
technologies now pervade our lives – from question answering systems on mobile
phones, to online recommendation engines, to medical diagnosis systems and automatic
translators. News outlets are replete with articles about new uses of AI, and also the
challenges that AI is likely to pose in the future, related to changes in job profiles,
competitiveness of firms, skills required and the prospects of machine domination.
The objective of this course is to examine the field and the technologies of AI and
understand how they impact decision making by managers, the nature of work in
organisations, and the future of competition on digital platforms. The course overviews
the development of AI over the decades and ways in which machine intelligence is
viewed and conceived. The focus is on basic concepts and approaches, rather than on the
details of the technology. Many of these technologies are used in disciplines such as
Analytics, Data Science, Knowledge Discovery and Machine Learning. This course also
examines the economic and social impact of AI, with a view to understanding
developments and disruptions in the future.
The course, as such, does not require a background in computer science, but an
interest and a broad understanding of the information systems field does help.

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Course Objectives
1. Understand the field of AI from a historical perspective
2. Understand the basic concepts of Search, Representation and Problem Solving.
3. Understand the basic machine learning techniques
4. Understand how managerial decision making and policy is impacted by AI
5. Understand the debates around AI – its pros and cons
6. Understand the future of work and the economy with AI.

Textbook: The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine will
Remake our World, P. Domingos, Allen Lane, 2015.
Reference Texts:
1. An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms, Melanie Mitchell, MIT Press, 1996.
2. Ant Colony Optimization by M. Dorigo and T. Stutzle. MIT Press, 2004.
3. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, S.J. Russell and P. Norvig. Pearson
Education, 2003 (Second Edition).
4. Artificial Minds by Stan Franklin, MIT Press, 1995.
5. How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed. Kurzweil, Ray.
Penguin, 2012.
6. Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark.
Allen Lane, 2017.
7. Machine Learning, Tom Mitchell, McGraw-Hill, 1997.
8. The Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of Mass Unemployment by
Martin Ford. Oneworld Publications, 2015.

Grading
In-class Quizzes 20%
Mid-term 30%
Group Assignment(s) 20%
Final Exam 30%

Attendance: Optional. However, please note that there will be a quiz in every class, and
there is no makeup for missed quizzes.

Topics
(This is a tentative list. It may be updated as needed.)
1. AI Today
Required Reading:
1. "The Business of Artificial Intelligence: What it Can—and Cannot—Do for
Your Organization." Brynjolfsson, Erik and Andrew McAfee. Harvard Business

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Review, July 2017.
2. "What's Driving the Machine Learning Explosion?" Brynjolfsson, Erik and
Andrew McAfee. Harvard Business Review, July 18, 2017.
3. “What Artificial Intelligence Can and Can’t Do Right Now.” Andrew Ng.
Harvard Business Review, November 09, 2016.
2. Origins of AI
Additional Reading:
“Computing Machinery and Intelligence” by A.M. Turing, 1950.
“History of AI,” Chapter 1, Russell and Norvig, 2003.
3. Symbolic Processing and Search
Additional Reading:
“Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry: Symbols and Search”, Newell, A. and
Simon, Herbert. A., Communications of the ACM, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1976.
“Solving Problems by Searching,” Chapter 3, Russell and Norvig, 2003.
4. Planning and Problem Solving
Additional Reading:
“Planning,” Chapter 11, Russell and Norvig, 2003.
5. Architecture of AI and Robotics
Additional Reading:
“Intelligent Agents”, Chapter 2, Russell and Norvig, 2003.
“Intelligence Without Representation.” Brooks, R. A.. Artificial Intelligence,
47(1-3), 139-159, 1991.
6. Neural Networks: basic theory
Required Reading:
“How Does Your Brain Learn,” Chapter 4 from The Master Algorithm, P.
Domingos, 2015.

Additional Reading:
“Artificial Neural Networks,” Machine Learning, Chapter 4, Mitchell, 1997.
7. Neural Networks and Deep learning: basic theory
Additional Reading:
LeCun, Y., Bengio, Y. and Hinton, G. “Deep Learning,” Nature, Vol 521, pp. 436-
444, 2015.
8. Neural Networks: Modelling and Applications

9. Induction learning
Required Reading:

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“Hume’s Problem of Induction,” Chapter 3 from The Master Algorithm, P.
Domingos, 2015.

Additional Reading:
“Learning Decision Trees,” Chapter 18, Section 18.3, Russell and Norvig, pages
653-664.
10. Reinforcement learning
Required Reading:
“Learning Without a Teacher,” Chapter 8 from The Master Algorithm, P.
Domingos, 2015.

Additional Reading:
“Reinforcement Learning,” Machine Learning, Chapter 13, Mitchell, 1997.
“Reinforcement Learning,” Chapter 21, Section 21.1-21.3, Russell and Norvig,
pp. 763-777.
11. Clustering; Analogical reasoning
Required Reading:
“Learning Without a Teacher,” Chapter 8 from The Master Algorithm, P.
Domingos, 2015.

Additional Reading:
“Instance-Based Learning,” Machine Learning, Chapter 8, Mitchell, 1997.
12. Bayesian learning
Required Reading:
“In the Church of the Reverend Bayes,” Chapter 6 from The Master Algorithm, P.
Domingos, 2015.

Additional Reading:
“Bayesian Learning,” Machine Learning, Chapter 6, Mitchell, 1997.
13. Evolutionary Systems: Genetic Algorithms
Required Reading:
“Evolution: Nature’s Learning Algorithm,” Chapter 5 from The Master
Algorithm, P. Domingos, 2015.

Additional Reading:
An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms, Chapter 1, M. Mitchell, 1996.
“Genetic Algorithms,” Machine Learning, Chapter 9, Mitchell, 1997.
14. Combined approaches in learning

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 Required Reading:
“The Pieces of the Puzzle Fall into Place,” Chapter 9 from The Master Algorithm,
P. Domingos, 2015.
15. Ant Colony Optimization
Additional Reading:
“From Real Ants to Artificial Ants,” Chapter 1 from Ant Colony Optimization by
M. Dorigo and T. Stutzle. MIT Press 2004.
16. Artificial Life systems
Required Reading:
“Swarm Intelligence: A whole new way to think about business,” by E. Bonabeau
and C. Meyer, Harvard Business Review, 2001.
17. The Future of AI: part 1
Required Reading:
“This is the World on Machine Learning,” Chapter 10 from The Master
Algorithm, P. Domingos, 2015.
Additional Reading:
Three chapters from Artificial Minds by S. Franklin, 1995.
18. The Future of AI: part 2
Additional Reading:
“The Biologically Inspired Digital Neocortex,” Chapter 7 from How to Create a
Mind, R. Kurzweil, 2012.
“White-Collar Jobs at Risk,” Chapter 4 from The Rise of the Robots, M. Ford,
2015.
“Welcome to the Most Important Conversation of Our Time,” Chapter 1 from
Life 3.0, M. Tegmark, 2017.
19. Guest lecture
20. Student presentations

Course Requirements
Reading material will be provided on Moodle and students will have to come prepared to
each class for discussions.

DIY Assignments
Do-it-yourself (DIY) assignments are projects that require students to work on their own,
with their groups. The objective of these projects is for students to familiarize themselves
with running AI programs using various free and open source packages. The projects will
involve downloading software, downloading datasets and running the software on the
datasets. Assistance in doing the projects will be provided.

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Some projects will require a submission, which will be in the form of a comment on the
results of running the software. Other projects will not require any submission.

Group Assignments
The group assignment will consist of writing a 4-5 page report on an aspect of AI that
affects business – data acquisition, type of decision to be made, quality of decision
required, job displacement/replacement, skill enhancement, competitiveness, privacy,
ethics, etc. The report may be based on primary or secondary research and data. It should
attempt to arrive at an original insight on AI and business. Groups will present their
findings in the last class, in a 5-minute, one-slide presentation.