Spring 2009

LIN 312 • Language and Computers

Course Description

This undergraduate class looks at everyday tasks that involve natural language processing: searching, spam filtering, spelling and grammar correction, information extraction, machine translation, cryptography and some others. Students will get insight into the how these systems work (and why it is still so difficult to do natural language processing well). We also consider social and ethical considerations such as privacy, job creation and loss due to language technologies, and the nature of consciousness and machine intelligence.

Grading Policy

Assignments: (50%) Essay: (10%) Mid-term Exam: (20%) Final Exam: (20%)

Texts

There is no appropriate textbook for this course. Reading material will be made available through the course website.

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