Hybrid intelligence: where AI systems and humans meet
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is widely used in our society: from cars that detect pedestrians to our smartphones’ virtual assistants. These applications use AI techniques to interpret information from a wide variety of sources, and enable intelligent, goal-directed behaviour.
The Artificial Intelligence Master’s programme at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam looks specifically at hybrid intelligence, where AI systems and humans collaborate. The first year consists of broad courses that focus on core AI topics, while the second year is devoted to your chosen area of specialisation.
In collaboration with Psychology department, we also offer the specialised Cognitive Science track.
AI for Health is a track in collaboration with Medical Informatics (Amsterdam UMC, UvA). In this track you'll learn about Medical Informatics basics, Medical AI (with a focus on imaging techniques in medicine and natural language processing techniques in medicine), and how to combine machine learning and reasoning for health applications. Two courses will take place at Amsterdam UMC, location AMC.
AI’s applications are highly diverse, ranging from optimising internet searches to supporting elderly people with dementia. The VU’s Artificial Intelligence programme allows you to analyse, develop and apply new AI techniques to come up with solutions that make sense within their social context.
In your first year, you’ll take a number of compulsory courses that cover the key concepts of AI. You’ll learn how human behaviour can be interpreted based on sensor data and computational models of physiological and cognitive processes.
You’ll gain experience in integrating such models in dedicated, intelligent applications that support humans in their daily lives. And you’ll work with these systems to make sure they’re truly aware of the way humans operate.
In your second year, you’ll specialise. And there are lots of possibilities and opportunities to do so. You can continue to study AI techniques in more depth, building on the core topics. And you can choose advanced elective courses in these or more specific AI topics like Deep Learning.
In the specialisation phase, you can also study a particular area of application – such as supporting people in following a healthy lifestyle or caring for the elderly. Or you can focus on a relevant scientific discipline: psychology, sociology, movement sciences, or biomedical sciences, for example.
Another option is to continue in the specialised Cognitive Science track, during which you’ll gain an in-depth understanding of the cognitive aspects of AI.
AI for Health is a new track in collaboration with Medical Informatics (Amsterdam UMC, UvA) that will start in the academic year 2021-2022. In this track you'll learn about Medical Informatics basics, Medical AI (with a focus on imaging techniques in medicine and natural language processing techniques in medicine), and how to combine machine learning and reasoning for health applications. Two courses will take place at Amsterdam UMC, location AMC.
The VU’s AI programme is a pioneer in the development of intelligent systems. As a Master's student, you’ll get the opportunity to work on advanced information systems at a wide range of companies and institutions. Some recent examples include:
The start date of this programme is September 1st.
First year
One of AI’s goals is to develop agent systems that can make decisions and complete tasks without human supervision. In the Multi-agent Systems course, you’ll examine how agents can collaborate and communicate with each other to behave intelligently.
During the Socially Intelligent Robotics course, you’ll get the chance to create interaction designs for a robot in a real-world context with genuine potential users.
In the Knowledge Representation course, you’ll use logic as a mathematical tool to answer questions like: Which logics are suited for reasoning about space and time? How can we deal with uncertainty and vagueness? And how to cope with changes in the world around us?
During the Natural Language Processing Technology course, you’ll study state-of-the-art statistical models for complex language processing tasks such as parsing, language modelling and machine translation.
Plus, we’ll put AI into the social context. In the AI and Society course, you’ll discuss the consequences of AI for the labour market and inequality, ethical considerations, risks of bias and misuse of algorithms, legal issues and questions about control over AI systems.
In addition, you’ll have the chance to take a few electives during your first year. For example, the Data Mining course will give you an overview of basic data mining techniques and how to use them to solve real-life problems.
If you elect to take the course on Cognitive Psychology and Its Application, you’ll learn how to apply the central principles of cognitive psychology to the design of modern man-machine systems. Mental workload, driving behaviour, route finding, medical decision-making, display design – these are all examples you’ll cover.
Compulsory courses
You can find the complete course overview for this year in the Study guide
Second year
