Introduction to Logic-Based AI
The Third Edition, Launched August 27 2026!!
Instructor: Selmer Bringsjord

Course Encapsulation

Syllabus

Class-Day Content

• August 27 2026: Preliminary Orientation (S Bringsjord)
  

• August 31 2026 Course Mechanics/Logistics Re-Review; What is L-B AI? Logic Programming? (S Bringsjord)
  

  After revisiting the slide deck from last time, the syllabus briefly re-projected and presented, and discussed, in detail. Assignment #1 — to watch BR — leads here to an open, free-wheeling discussion of the movie, and, minimally, three topics (authenticaion of humans in today’s fintech world, CAPTCHA, the Turing Test; machine conscioiusness; and the limits of machine intelligence)

• September 3 2026: What is Logic-Based AI, Redux?; Its History, Redux — & The Singularity; Glimpses of Logistics Re HyperLogic Platform (S Bringsjord)
  

  We take a quick look at a New York Times piece devoted to AI’s emailing humans about consciousness, a rather spooky phenomenon. It’s pointed out that a later class meeting, on Oct 19, will be devoted to this topic, and two papers will need to be read ahead of time for that class meeting: this paper on the pursuit of machine quantum consciousness, and as well as this paper on the attempt to detect and measure consciousness in an AI for the purpose of advancing the measurement of the intelligence of that AI. We then proceed to bring to life in HyperSlate^® the simple, starting logic programs presented and briefly discussed in our previous meeting (e.g. the remarkably small but informative program p, consisting of a single symbol. We end by reviewing the list of assignments currently on the docket for all students in the class.

• September 10 2026: The Failure of Deep Learning; GPT-4o Bites the Dust (S Bringsjord)
  

  We challenge GPT-4o (as well as the recent LRM GPT-5) with some problems that are cakewalks for logic-based AI systems, and observe well its abject failure. The problems used serve to provide the start of a gentle introduction to the logic known as the propositional calculus, or just \(\mathscr{L}_{pc}\) — and we also take a look ahead to the problem of layered quantification for (artificial) neural network-based AI, which 45 years ago was laid down as the chief challenge to succh AI by the logicians. This challenge remains completely unmet today. We note, quickly, that the AIs in HyperSlate^®, known as oracles, have no trouble at all with the problems that cripple GPT- 4o — including Moriarty’s fiendish red-or-blue-wire? bomb challenge.

  • A video showing the use of the PC provability oracle in HyperSlate^® solving the “NYS 3” logic problem is available here.

• September 14 2026 The Propositional Logic via Logical Journey of the Zoombinis (S Bringsjord)
  

  Our traditional “Logic & AI in The News” segment is about the Lean 4 proof of the Nevier-Stokes solution. We then look more formally at the propositional calculus, its underlying grammar, and s-expressions that will be used in HyperSlate^®. Then we see how this calculus can be brought to life by play in Zoombinis, and use of HyperSlate^®. We also consider a second, harder bomb challenge from the nefarious Prof. Moriarity, one involving now four wires, not just two. We also go over the final-project options, in connection with relevant supporting technology to accomplish them. Unfortunately, screen

• September 17 2026: Zeroth-Order Logic in ZLog; Can AIs Handle Logic Problems? Write Computer Programs?
  

  Inside the lecture “If AIs Can Really Write Computer Programs, Where — Today & Tomorrow — Does That Leave Human Programmers, and Those Who Teach and Employ Them?”, available in pdf form here, we consider zeroth-order logic in the Motalen’s programming language Zlog. In particular, we consider current logic puzzles and whether today’s vaunted foundation-model AIs can handle them, and concretize this investigation by seeing whether Gemini and/or GPT-Pro can logicize a single innocent sentence: “My Langersham often comes home from work in the afternoons to find his five cats sleeping.” (They fail miserably.)

• September 21 & 24: Is The Singularity Logico-Mathematically Impossible? Yup
  

  The slide deck here covers two class meetings, in which The Singularity is revealed to be (unless the nature of machine intelligence, and its particular level in a given AI, consists of nothing more than speed of Turing-level computation) a pipe dream/nightmare. Re. this topic, the background paper in question, in which the refutation is provided in more detail, can be found here. But in addition to this refutation, a number of other topics are discussed, to wit:

  • We continue our learning of zeroth-order logic, with help from Zoombinis and modeling/exploration in HyperSlate^®.
  • We investigate whether foundation-model AIs in today’s headlines (e.g. Gemini, GPT-Pro, etc.) are able to solve logic puzzles that humans routinely solve. (We focus on the mystery “Cap Nap” from Egghead Games. Oddly, while clearly AI must have contributed in some substantive way to creating these puzzles, including CN, today’s “headline” AIs don’t perform well at all.)
  • We review three formal conceptions of intelligence in machines, one due to Legg & Hutter, one from Chollet, and one from S Bringsjord and NS Govindarajulu. The latter, clearly superior 😇, is Universal Cognitive Intelligence, or just UCI, an introduction which which can be found here.

• September 28 2026: Human Disemployment, Dignity, & The MiniMaxularity (S & A Bringsjord)
  

  The Bringsjords here explain that AIs are not only in the process of disemploying humans, also of auctioning off human labor (Uber’s current ride-management system being a simple case in point). This amounts to an assult on human dignity. The two also discuss the intimmately related MiniMaxularity (not to be confused with the Singularity!), the fast-approaching point in time when the embryonic competence of AIs of today at the “laboratory level” mature, and hence do many human jobs to the point where they match (and in some cases exceed, even greatly) human performance in these jobs.

• October 1 2026: First-Order Logic = FOL, Part 1; and the First (Logic) Programmer (S Bringsjord)
  

  Here begins coverage of FOL = \(\mathscr{L}_1\). We start by taking note of the vast intellectual canyon separating nonhuman animals and humans, created in significant part by their inability to reason with quantifiers, versus our ability to do so. We then explore the fragment of FOL invented by Aristotle over two millennia ago, which allows only a single quantifier Q ( or ) into each proposition (e.g. “All foobers are sneepers,” which has when logicized a single universal quantifier (forall in our s-expressions) and no others). Aristotle wrote logic programs that had only two lines, specifically two such propositions; and in addition he allowed a query against these programs in the form of a third proposition, the question being whether or not the third follows deductively from the two-line program. Next and finally, we explore, using the logic-based AI in HyperSlate^® (specifically oracles operating at the level of FOL) the fascinating items on the Deductive Flexibility Test from the Reasoning Research Group at Polands’s Adam Mickiewicz University.

• October 5 2026: First-Order Logic = FOL, Part 2 (Xiye Fan & S Bringsjord)
  

  After our traditional look at some ILBAI-relevant news in the popular media (in which it’s reported that what religious scholars learned recently about AI from Anthropic regrding AI stunned them), we move to Part 2 of FOL = \(\mathscr{L}_1\), in hands-on, dynamic fashion in HyperSlate^®. We further explore, using the logic-based AIs accessible in HyperSlate^® (specifically oracles operating at the level of FOL) an extended version of Aristotle’s ``Bocardo” syllgism, but allowing now a max of two quantifiers in a statement/formula.

  Coverage of the inference schema universal intro is provided in the slide deck; full coverage is in our e-textbook.

• October 8 2026: First-Order Logic = FOL, Part 3 (S Bringsjord)
  

  After our traditional look at some ILBAI-relevant news in the popular media, specifically the remarkale disclosure (with corresponding proof) that OpenAI’s logicist work devoted to building and formally verfifying a formal-logic proof of the famous/infamous Navier-Stokes solution is plagued by errors in the translation from natural language used by mathematicians, to the much more precise language used by logicians and required by Lean, we finish up our coverage in class of FOL = \(\mathscr{L}_1\), once again in hands-on, dynamic fashion in HyperSlate^®. We further explore, using the logic-based AI in HyperSlate^® (specifically oracles operating at the level of FOL), yet another ramp-up in the complexity of 3-formula queries rooted in aristotle. Finally, the Colonel-West-Criminal? probelm from AIMA 4E Chap 9 is presented, and issued to students. Coverage of the inference schema existential elim is provided in the slide deck; full coverage is in our e-textbook.

• October 12 2026: No Class: Columbus Day/Indigenous People’s Day
  

• October 15 & 16 2026 The Movie Matrix; On to Intensional Logics; Real Learning
  

  This is a back-to-back class on two consecutive days, with one slide deck for the pair. The full title of this combo class is, and yes, it’s admittedly quite a mouthful: “FOL Problems on HG®, Incl. Colonel West; Intensional Logic & The False Belief Task; Real Learning.” We first ake a look at some FOL problems in HG^®, including the Colonel West problem from the Russell-Norvig AIMA textbook. We then pass to a general introduction, using the robot Blinky and a shell game, along with the False Belief Test (FBT) all the way to level 5 and beyond, to explain the crucial difference between extensional logics versus intensional logics. The logics \(\mathscr{L}_{pc}\), \(\mathscr{L}_0\), \(\mathscr{L}_1\), \(\mathscr{L}_2\), \(\mathscr{L}_3\) are all extensional. Now we move to the intensional category, which includes epistemic logics such as are needed to formalize and simulate FBT. The quantified intensional logic \(\mathcal{DCEC}\) is briefly introduced.

  The second class is devoted to a discussion of Blade Runner and the Turing Test. It turns out that while BR is entertainment (and, arguably, art), the U.S. govt very much currently seeks AI technology that can determine whether an artifact has been produced by an AI or by a human. In the orginal Turing Test, the artifact was text in conversation by “teletype.” But now the challenge extends to deep-fake videos, and so on.

• October 19 2026 AI and Consciousness (Selmer Bringsjord)
  

  The field of AI has long been marginally interested in whether AIs can be conscious. But the advent of Generative AI has transformed slight interest into — at least for some — deep concern. One sign of this is the increasing frequency with which people in AI and cognate fields (e.g. computational cognitive science) these days claim that some artificial agents are conscious. But for starters, what is consciousness? We take note of the fact that there are unfortunately multiple kinds of consciousness in the relevant literature [e.g. phenomental consciousness, which centers around feelings and emotions, and is these days sometimes referred to (unknowingly) by journalists by the word ‘sentience’; versus cognitive consciousness, from S Bringsjord and NS Govindarajulu, which is accompanied by a system, \(\Lambda\), for measuring the level of c-consciousness in an agent, whether human, artificial, or alien. A non-technical introduction to p-consciousness versus c-consciousness is available here.

Cinematic Assignments

Popular-Periodical Assignments