The course is split into three blocks that cover the following topics:
- Actual causality and responsibility attribution
- Explainability and agent incentives
- Accountability in reinforcement learning
Each block will have a tutoring session which is intended to provide students with basic technical background on the related topic. The subsequent lectures in a given block will cover papers from the reading list (see Schedule and Reading List), and will consist of student presentations and discussion sessions. Each student will be asked to present one paper from the reading list in total. After each presentation, we will have a discussion session, where students will have an opportunity to ask questions about the presented paper. Students are expected to actively participate in the discussion sessions.
In addition, students will have reading assignments based on the reading list (see Schedule and Reading List). Each student will be asked to report on six papers in total (two papers per topic) following the formatting instructions provided below. These reports will serve as a preparation for the lectures where the corresponding papers will be discussed. For detailed information about the deadlines, please see below.
The lectures, office hours, presentations, reports are any communication with the course staff will be conducted exclusively in English.
Reports on Research Papers
Each student will be asked to write six reports in total (two reports per topic). The paper assignment is going to be random and it will be communicated to the students via email after the introductory lecture. The reading list can be found in the course schedule.
Format: Each report should be two pages long and written in Latex using the NeurIPS 2023 template that can be found on the following link. Please make sure that you use the non-anonymous preprints option: each of your reports should have the title of the research paper and your name, added as an author in the latex template.
Structure: Each report should have the following structure:
- Summary: briefly summarize the paper outlining the contributions
- Strengths & Weaknesses: identify and comment on the main strengths and weaknesses of the paper
- Improvements & Extensions: identify aspects that the in which the paper could be improved and extended
Students are expected to provide a concise report along the aforementioned dimensions, i.e., enumerate and comment on 3-5 strengths, 3-5 weaknesses, 2-3 improvements and 2-3 extensions.
Submitting your report: Each report should be submitted as a PDF file via sending an email to accountable-AI-s2023-tutors@mpi-sws.org. Name your file using your last name followed by the number of your report, e.g., if you are submitting your fourth report, name your file as last_name_4.pdf. Please use the subject Report Submission in your emails.
Student Presentations
Each student will be asked to present one paper from the reading list. The presentation assignment is going to be random and it will be communicated to the students via email. The timeline of the presentations can be found in the course schedule.
Format: The presentation should be 20 minutes long. Make sure that the first slide of your presentation includes your name and the title of the paper you are presenting.
Submitting your presentation slides: Students should also submit their presentation slides prior to the presentation day. The slides should be submitted as a PDF file via sending an email to accountable-AI-s2023-tutors@mpi-sws.org using the subject Slides Submission. Please name your file using your last name.
Office Hours
We will regularly have office hours (please see the schedule), where students can ask any clarification questions or get feedback on their presentation slides. If you wish to get feedback on your presentation slides, please send us a draft of your slides at least three days before the office hours, so that we can take a look at the draft beforehand.
Submission Deadlines
The deadlines for submitting your reports and presentation slides can be found in the course schedule. The deadline for submitting reports is Tuesday before the relevant lecture at 14:00 (CET). For example, if a paper is presented and discussed on Thursday May 11, the deadline for submitting the report for that paper is Tuesday May 9 at 14:00 (CET).
Late submission policy: Submitting your presentation slides and all of your reports is mandatory. We will apply a flexible slip date policy for late submissions. Each student is granted an automatic extension of four days for submitting their reports for the entire semester, that is, each student can delay their submissions up to four days in total. The extensions can be used in increments of one day. For example, you can submit one of your reports 2 days late, and two other reports 1 day late. Late submissions beyond the automatic extension will not receive points.
Grading
Your final grade will be based on the total score derived from the following two grading components:
- Written reports will correspond to 50% of the total score
- Presentations will correspond to 50% of the total score
To pass the seminar course, a student should obtain at least 50% of the maximal score for each of these grading components.