Course Projects

Overview

The main course deliverable is a final project. The project will consist of a final report, a final in-class presentation, and a few milestones along the way. You will receive feedback on all milestones, either through email or through meeting with me.

The main guidelines for projects are:

• Topics: You may do your project on ay topic related to the topic of foundations of trustworthy AI. This could include one of the topics we study in class or a related topic that we don't cover that connects to the course material.
• Project Format: Projects live on a spectrum, but to discuss expectations it's helpful to think about two categories:
• Empirical Projects: Taking one or more of the ideas from the course and applying them in a new way. For example evaluating them on a new dataset, in a new domain, or with a new objective. Ideally, projects will find a way to go further and extend or improve the ideas. Since this is a foundational course, empirical projects should still include some theoretical component, such as modeling of the problem or developing and describing your method.
• Foundations Projects: Presenting one or more papers that go beyond what we saw in class in depth. Ideally projects will contain some new results that go beyond what is in the literature or synethesize new papers that in a coherent way.
• Collaboration: Projects can be done solo, or in teams of two or three. I highly encourage working in teams, but the amount of work in the project must be proportional to the size of the team.
• Originality: It's great if your project complements your ongoing research. But your project must contain some new research that you did for the project, not something you have already done.
• AI Policy: AI is part of research now, for better or worse, so AI use is allowed on the project. It is your responsibility to do a good project and to learn something from it. You must include a paragraph explaining how you used AI in your project, and you will be expected to be able to interact and answer questions about your project during the in-class presentation.

Schedule

See below for more information on each milestone.

Milestones

A brief description of each milestone. Written milestones can be submitted by emailing me directly. These are in progress so check back often.

• Project Brainstorm: Write a brief description of what topics interest you the most, and come up with 1–3 brief ideas for what you might do for your project. If you have teammates, you may submit one project brainstorm. If you would like to find teammates, submit your own brainstorm and I will use these to try to pair up students.
• Project Proposal: Write a short (≤ 1 page) description of the problem you are going to address and your plan for getting started. Include information like the key paper or other materials you are reading as part of your project, the approach you're going to take, and what outcomes you're hoping for. Research evolves as it goes on but the more planning you do the better! The whole proposal should be about a page long.
• Progress Reports: Write a short (≤ 1 page) description of how your project is going. Explain how your goals and research plan have changed and why?
• Project Check-Ins: We will schedule a brief meeting to discuss your progress report so I can give feedback and help you make progress.
• Final Presentation: Check back for updates.
• Final Report: Check back for updates.