The AI Minor
The Bowers CIS Artificial Intelligence minor (AI) will be open to all undergraduates beginning in fall 2024, and is designed to provide students with a solid foundational understanding of the algorithms and techniques that underlie AI capabilities. Learn more.
Minor Requirements
- Six courses are required in total.
- There are four required Foundations of AI core courses. Two are technical classes – on computational AI methods for learning and reasoning, respectively. These are complemented by a course on the design and evaluation of human-AI systems and a course on AI ethics, governance, and policy.
- Students must also complete two additional AI elective courses from a list of approved AI minor electives provided below.
- Students may count a maximum of two courses toward both the AI minor and their own major’s requirements, though they may count other courses they take for the AI minor toward their major’s elective requirements, provided their department approves.
Notes for CS Majors
- You may count a maximum of two courses toward both the AI Minor and your CS core courses, CS electives, and/or CS practicum requirements for the CS major.
- You may, however, count other courses you take for the AI Minor toward your CS technical electives, external specialization, major-approved and/or advisor-approved elective coursework, but only if those courses meet the requirements for that category of elective.
Notes for IS Majors (A&S and CALS)
- You may count a maximum of two courses toward both the AI Minor and your IS core courses and/or IS concentration requirements for the IS major.
- You may, however, count other courses you take for the AI Minor toward your IS electives, but only if those courses meet the requirements for that category of elective.
Notes for ISST Majors:
- You may count a maximum of two courses toward both the AI Minor and your ISST core courses and/or primary ISST concentration requirements for the ISST major.
- You may, however, count other courses you take for the AI Minor toward your secondary ISST concentration, advisor approved electives and major approved electives but only if those courses meet the requirements for that category of elective.
Grade Requirements
- All qualifying courses must be taken at Cornell for a letter grade. Grades of S/U or SX/UX grades will not be accepted. Course substitutions or external coursework are also not allowed.
- Each course must be completed with a grade of “C” or better to count toward the minor. Grades of “C-” will not be accepted.
Prerequisites
Please note that this is a highly technical minor. The majority of the required and elective courses have mandatory prerequisites that include computer programming, probability, calculus, and/or linear algebra. Please review each course's prerequisites in the Cornell Courses of Study starting with the Foundations courses, and plan your schedule accordingly.
Foundations of AI: Machine Learning
One of:
- CS 3780 - Machine Learning for Intelligent Systems (formerly CS 4780)
- ECE 3200 - Fundamentals of Machine Learning (formerly ECE 4200)
- ORIE 3741 - Learning with Big Messy Data (formerly ORIE 4741)
- STSCI 3740 - Data Mining and Machine Learning (formerly STSCI 4740)
Foundations of AI: Reasoning
- CS 3700 - Foundations of AI (formerly CS 4700)
Foundations of AI: Human-AI Interaction
One of:
- INFO 4940, Section entitled, "Designing AI Products and Services" (next offered in SP 2026)
- INFO 4940, Section entitled, "Human-AI Interaction Design Research"
Note: Students graduating in December 2025 or May 2026 may use INFO 3450 Human-Computer Interaction as an alternative. This substitution is only permitted for December and May graduates during the initial two years of the new minor (academic years 2024-25 and 2025-26).
Foundations of AI: Ethics, Governance & Policy
One of:
- ENGRG 3605 - Ethics of Computing and Artificial Intelligence Technologies
- INFO 1260/CS 1340 - Choices and Consequences in Computing
- INFO 4940 - Section entitled, "Law, Policy, and Politics of AI"
- PUBPOL/INFO 4210 - Artificial Intelligence: Law, Ethics, and Politics
Electives
Two of:
- CS 4670 - Intro Computer Vision
- CS 4701 - Practicum in Artificial Intelligence
- CS 4740/COGST 4740/LING 4474 - Natural Language Processing
- CS 4750/ECE 4770/MAE 4760 - Foundations of Robotics
- CS 4756 - Robot Learning
- CS 4782 - Introduction to Deep Learning
- CS 4783 - Mathematical Foundations of Machine Learning
- CS 4787 - Principles of Large-Scale Machine Learning Systems
- CS 4789 - Introduction to Reinforcement Learning
- CS/MATH 4860 - Applied Logic
- ECE 4160/MAE 4190 - Fast Robots
- ENGRG 3605 - Ethics of Computing and Artificial Intelligence Technologies (cannot be used jointly to fulfill the Foundations of AI: Ethics, Governance & Policy requirement)
- INFO 1260/CS 1340 - Choices and Consequences in Computing (cannot be used jointly to fulfill the Foundations of AI: Ethics, Governance & Policy requirement)
- INFO 3350 - Text Mining History and Literature
- INFO 3950 - Data Analytics for Information Science
- INFO 4100 - Learning Analytics
- INFO 4120 - Ubiquitous Computing
- INFO 4130 - Health and Computation
- INFO 4275 - Novel Interaction Techniques
- INFO/CS 4300 - Language and Information
- INFO 4310 - Interactive Information Visualization
- INFO 4410/CS 4754 - Re-Designing Robots
- INFO 4940 - Section entitled, "Advanced NLP for Humanities Research"
- INFO 4940 - Section entitled, "Law, Policy, and Politics of AI" (cannot be used jointly to fulfill the Foundations of AI: Ethics, Governance & Policy requirement)
- LING 4424/COGST 4240/CS 4744 - Computational Linguistics I
- LING 4434/CS 4745 - Computational Linguistics II
- MAE 4180/CS 4758/ECE 4180 - Autonomous Mobile Robots
- MAE 4810/ECE 4240 - Robot Perception
- NBA 4920 - Artificial Intelligence for Marketing Strategy
- ORIE 4160 - Topics in Data Science and OR
- ORIE 4570 - Reinforcement Learning with Operations Research Applications
- ORIE 4740 - Statistical Data Mining I
- ORIE 4742 - Info Theory Probabilistic Modeling and Deep Learning with Scientific and Financial Apps
- PUBPOL/INFO 4210 - Artificial Intelligence: Law, Ethics, and Politics (cannot be used jointly to fulfill the Foundations of AI: Ethics, Governance & Policy requirement)
- PHIL/COGST 2621 - Minds and Machines
- STS 3440 - Data Science & Society Lab
- STSCI/BTRY 4030 - Linear Models with Matrices
- STSCI 4520 - Statistical Computing
- STSCI 4750 - Understanding Machine Learning
Questions about the AI minor should be directed to cis.ai-minor@cornell.edu.