The schedule is subject to change: this website is under construction; please check back frequently.
Meetings: fourteen Mondays, 5:00–8:20 PM, from August 24 to November 30. The university is closed on September 7 (Labor Day). Section 30122 meets in SGM 124; section 30359 attends through DEN@Viterbi. The August 31 meeting is a recorded lecture for both sections: there is no live session and no meeting in SGM 124 that day.
Discussion: Piazza
| # | Date | Topic | Assessment and deadlines |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aug 24 |
Course intro; ML and DL framing; agent security and trustworthy AI; linear models
Slides |
|
| 2 | Aug 31 |
Classical ML: decision trees, kNN, clustering; model metrics
Recorded lecture, no live session. There is no meeting in SGM 124 that day; watch the recording on your own time. |
|
| — | Sep 7 | Labor Day, no class | |
| 3 | Sep 14 | Neural network basics: perceptron, gradient descent, forward propagation | |
| 4 | Sep 21 | Backpropagation; vanishing gradients; activation functions; NVIDIA guest lecture | Assignment out |
| 5 | Sep 28 | Convolutional neural networks | Quiz 1 |
| 6 | Oct 5 | RNN and LSTM; graph neural networks | Pre-proposal due |
| 7 | Oct 12 | Training dynamics; transfer learning | |
| 8 | Oct 19 | Generative AI: GAN and VAE | Assignment due; exam scope posted |
| 9 | Oct 26 | Attention, decoding, mixture of experts; midterm review | |
| 10 | Nov 2 | Midterm | Midterm |
| 11 | Nov 9 | Self-supervised learning and LLMs; out-of-distribution and anomaly detection | Project midterm report due |
| 12 | Nov 16 | Scaling laws; reinforcement learning | Quiz 2 |
| 13 | Nov 23 | Automated ML; project clinic | |
| 14 | Nov 30 | Project poster session | |
| — | Dec 7 | No final exam | Final report due |
Midterm: the exam covers everything taught up to and including the October 26 lecture. A narrower list of what is and is not tested is posted here and on Piazza by October 19; that posted scope only narrows the material above, never adds to it.
Final presentation: the last meeting is a poster and demo session rather than sequential talks. All groups present in parallel, and every group member answers questions individually.