Doing research in machine learning can be challenging! Consequently, we will be able to
work with only a small number of students, and enrollment will be limited.
One of the goals of the class is to help students get involved in
long-term research. Specifically, it is targeted to full-time students who anticipate being at
Stanford until at least June 2013. Thus, for example, freshmen, sophomore
or junior students are eligible to take the class, as are seniors who have
already been admitted to a co-term program. First year MSc students and PhD
students are also eligible, but not senior students, co-term students or second
year MSc students who are graduating before June 2012.
To quickly get you the background knowledge you'll need to do research in deep
learning, all students are required to successfully complete a programming
assignment on deep learning (posted below) by Wednesday
January 12th. This programming assignment asks you to implement the sparse
autoencoder algorithm. If you have taken and mastered the
material in CS221 or CS229 (including basic Matlab programming), we believe you
should be able to successfully complete this assignment. This programming
assignment will also give you a lower-bound on the pace you can expect in CS294A.
If you are already involved in AI research, or if you already have experience
with deep learning algorithms (for example, if you had previously already
implemented a sparse autoencoder), you may be exempt from these requirements.
Please contact Prof. Ng if you would like to be considered for an exemption.
You can also watch Lecture video 1
and Lecture video 2 on this material. (These videos from last year
are on a slightly different version of the sparse autoencoder than we're using this year.)
