GROUP PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS

OVERVIEW
By Thursday, Aug. 3rd, at 12:00pm, each group should submit a FINAL DRAFT of
their group project (in PDF format)

The document should be composed of the following (in this order):

(1) Table of Contents

(2) Introduction [co-authored by all group members; 1-1.5 pages single-spaced]
(3) Paper #1 [single-authored, 4-5 pages single-spaced]
(4) Paper #2 [single-authored, 4-5 pages single-spaced]
(5) Paper #3 [single-authored, 4-5 pages single-spaced]
…
(*) Conclusion [co-authored by all group members, 1-1.5 pages single-spaced]

[The order of papers is up to you.]

Source expectations: 5-7 sources in each paper (these can overlap between papers)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Table of Content should have a format like the following:

HOPKINS STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:

MEMORY

1. INTRODUCTION
Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, Yoko Ono

2. WHAT IS MEMORY?
John Lennon

3. THEORIES OF MEMORY: COGNITIVE REVOLUTION AND EARLY AI

Yoko Ono

4. NEUROSCIENCE OF MEMORY: CONTEMPORARY CONTROVERSIES

Joni Mitchell

5. MEMORY IN ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

Jimi Hendrix

6. CONCLUSION
Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, Yoko Ono

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INTRODUCTION
Each group’s introduction is composed of two parts:

(1) A presentation of important “motivating” questions about the topic. Your aims
here are to (a) pose some steering and motivating questions about the topic, (b) arouse
excitement, interest, and curiosity about the topic in your audience, (c) introduce any
fundamental classifications or distinctions on which your group agrees, which are
important (or helpful) for interpreting the rest of the report, and (d) hint at some of your
more surprising results. In general it is best to be direct; but if you think of a clever way
to introduce your report’s theme by an anecdote or example, feel free to do so.

(2) A summary of the main contents (including thesis and argument) of each of the
papers (3-4 sentences for each paper).

PAPERS
Each paper is the sole responsibility of the individual author who writes it. However,
before starting to write, students should coordinate with their group about their
subtopics so that there isn’t too much overlap.

The options for style of paper are below. Each student should choose just one of these
options to work on.

(1) History paper: Historical trajectory or overview. This option focuses on the
history of approaches to the theme in one field (or, sometimes, 2 related fields),
such as AI research, philosophy, psychology, or computation. It is okay to restrict the
coverage to a particular year range or geographic region.

(2) History paper: Case study. This option looks closely at a single technology,
research program, or architecture (for instance: Deep Blue; Simon & Newell’s symbol-
processing research; etc.). It is distinguished from the first type of history paper in that it
is more focused and less of an overview.

(3) Philosophy paper: “What is X?” (where X is the group’s theme). It’s important in
this kind of paper to somehow consider or address the question of what would be
required for a machine to have or do X (perhaps in various senses). The focus is on
conceptual questions rather than technical details of current or past technologies,
though current and past technologies can be discussed if relevant to the conceptual
questions.

(4) Philosophy paper: Mind-machine analogy regarding X. (where X is the group’s

theme) This option seeks to address the question of the extent to which machines do X
like humans do (or, can do X like humans do).

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(5) Scientific Review paper: contemporary technology and challenges. This option
focuses on providing a survey of current technologies, as well as technical challenges in
the development of these technologies.

(6) Scientific Review paper: contemporary theory and controversies. This option
focuses on providing a survey of current theories of the theme in psychology or
neuroscience, as well as unresolved controversies about the theme.

(7) Another option. If you go this route, be sure to clear it with me verbally (or by email)
first.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR PAPERS

(1) The citation style is up to you, but I recommend the style of parenthetical citations
plus bibliography. (This is a very easy way to write, and easy to read as well). Here’s
an example:

One might attempt to recast the notion of “behavioral modernity” (Sterelny 2011, 2012) in terms
of increased complexity in niche constructed environments (in the sense of Odling-Smee et al.
2003). In early discussions, the complexity of a system was defined as deriving from (1) the
number of components of the system and (2) the number of relations between those components
(Simon 1962). McShea (1991) writes that “[t]here is some consensus now that the structural or
morphological complexity of a system (biological or otherwise) is some function of the number
of parts it has and the irregularity of their arrangement” (1991, 304). Recent authors have offered
similar definitions (Godfrey-Smith 1996; Wimsatt 2007).

Bibliography
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 1996. Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature. Cambridge
University Press.
McShea, Daniel. 1991. “Complexity and Evolution: What Everybody Knows.” Biology &
Philosophy 6: 303-324.
Odling-Smee, F. John, Kevin N. Laland, and Marcus W. Feldman. 2003. Niche Construction:
The Neglected Process in Evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Simon, Herbert. 1962. “The Architecture of Complexity.” Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society 106 (6): 467-482.
Sterelny, Kim. 2011. “From hominins to humans: how sapiens became behaviourally modern.”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 366: 809-822.
Sterelny, Kim. 2012. The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique. MIT
Press.
Wimsatt, William. 2007. Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise
Approximations to Reality. Harvard University Press.

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CONCLUSION
The conclusion is a place to summarize your group’s most interesting findings and any
further open questions you now notice that would be worth exploring in the future. I
recommend the following format:

(1) Summary of the main interesting or surprising conclusions from each paper. These
can probably best be recounted via 1-2 long paragraphs that stress connections or
overlaps between them.

(2) Statement of some open questions that would be worth exploring further. (These can
be stated in about 1 paragraph)