The term artificial intelligence brings to mind images of sci-fi robots automatically cooking us breakfast or perhaps plotting to take over the world. Studying the subject might seem like territory exclusive to the fields of mathematics and computer science.

Students in Doshi's Artificial Intelligence class study brainwaves and robotics in addition to EVAN STICHLER/Staff

In this semester’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence class, however, you’re likely to find students of an entirely different area ­— philosophy.

“What I love about this class is it’s very diverse,” said Prashant Doshi, the professor of the course. “I get students from philosophy, computer science and psychology. Last class I even had a student from biology.”

The course teaches the basics of “the artificial intelligence approach to modeling cognitive processes,” according to its listing on the University Bulletin.

This emphasis on cognitive processes is what gives the class a philosophical side. Cognition — the way the mind performs — is an important subject in philosophy.

The class is listed as both a computer science course — CSCI 4550 — and a philosophy course — PHIL 6550.

Students can choose from the two which credit they want, making it applicable towards several majors.

Doshi said that the diversity is a challenge, but that “the students learn a lot from each other.”

Much of the class’s basic artificial intelligence studies involve developing systems to solve problems that the human mind often struggles with, such as the water jug problem, tile arrangement and game-type scenarios.

“Right now we are discussing search techniques,” Doshi said. “For example, developing software that maps a route from Athens to Atlanta automatically.”

Although the class is developing software, students believe they are learning more than just programming.

“The concepts are interesting enough,” said Chris Harris, a senior computer science major from HOMETOWN. “It’s less about [programming] code and more about solving problems.”

Chris Muthig, a senior computer science major from Columbia, S.C. said the class of about 25 students is “a lecture with a lot of feedback.”

“There’s a lot of opinions that different people have,” he said.

Doshi lectures and discusses key principles with the class, then assigns them work. The philosophy majors are spared some of the more technical assignments.

“We start off nice and easy, but we move on to topics like logic, which quickly get very rigorous,” Doshi said. “We’ll start talking about different disciplines, then dive right into methods, techniques and algorithms. Philosophy students don’t have to do programming, while computer science students do.”

Although the class has some philosophical aspects, not all philosophy majors are impressed.

“I think it’s probably really fascinating to computer science students,” said Luc Frolet, a senior philosophy major from Dunwoody. “But it’s very boring to me. I don’t feel like it’s tailored to me. The concept has a lot of potential, but I don’t think it has a lot of relevance now.”