CS372: Artificial Intelligence for Reasoning, Planning, and Decision Making

Spring 2025, Stanford University

Instructor: Prof. Edward Y. Chang

Course Assistants: TBD

Lectures: Mondays & Wednesdays, 4:30 PM - 5:50 PM (Starting March 31, 2025)

Room: 420 041

Announcement

  1. Auditing is not permitted due to over-enrollment and intellectual property concerns related to student projects.
  2. Experience with fine-tuning LLMs is essential for assignments and the term project, as the course does not offer LLM credit.
  3. You may bring your own research problem for the term project.

Course Overview

Join us for an audacious aim—elevating LLMs from pattern matching to conscious reasoning, validation, and planning.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have revolutionized AI through remarkable pattern matching capabilities. However, the path to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) requires advancing beyond unconscious, reactive processing (automatic, stimulus-response behavior) to deliberate reasoning and validated planning. This course explores approaches to enhance LLMs with AGI-oriented capabilities through systematic reasoning, planning, and decision-making.

Core Questions:

  1. How can we enable LLMs to transition from pattern matching to conscious deliberation?
  2. What frameworks support robust reasoning and verifiable decisions?
  3. How do we implement planning and temporal awareness in LLM systems?
  4. What role does multi-LLM agent collaboration play in advancing toward AGI capabilities?
  5. More generally, what are the limitations of the current LLM architecture to overcome?

The course examines:

  1. Theoretical foundations of consciousness, reasoning, and planning in AI
  2. Multi-LLM Agent Collaborative Intelligence (MACI) frameworks
  3. Entropy-guided information exchange
  4. AI ethical alignment with checks and balance
  5. Linguistic behavior modeling
  6. Persistent memory management for validation and long-live workflow.
  7. Temporal reasoning and planning system architectures

Through lectures, discussions, and hands-on projects, students will explore and implement multi-agent systems that advance beyond current state-of-the-art frameworks (e.g., LangGraph) to address planning problems across various domains, including project planning, supply chain management, emergency room logistics, and natural disaster response.

Prerequisites: Completion of Machine Learning and Deep Learning courses, along with substantial experience with LLMs. Grading:
  1. Assignments 30%
  2. Dashes: 20%
  3. Final Presentation and Report: 40%
  4. Class Participation: 10%

Resources

Textbook

The primary textbook for this course is: Multi-LLM Collaborative Intelligence, The Path to AGI by Edward Y. Chang. Available on Amazon.

Reading Materials

Additional reading materials and supplementary content can be found on SocraSynth.com.

Office Hours

  1. Monday 2:00 - 4:00 PM, CoDA B48
  2. Tuesday 2:00 - 4:00 PM, CoDA B48
  3. Wednesday 2:00 - 4:00 PM, CoDA B48

Schedule

The following schedule is tentative and subject to updates.

# Date Description Course Materials Instructor and Participants Deadlines
1 March 31 Course Aims and Syllabus; From QA to Complex Reasoning and Planning;
Can LLMs alone achieve AGI, or are they a necessary but insufficient component on the path to AGI?
Slides | Readings E. Chang Assignment #1 out
2 April 2
  • Twelve Alphorisms to Uncover LLM Myth and Limittions.
  • Examining GPT-4’s Capabilities and Enhancement with SocraSynth.
  • Slides | Readings E. Chang -
    3 April 7 LangGraph Intro to Model Agentic Workflow for Planning Slides | Readings Leonie Freisinger, Stealth Startup -
    4 April 9
  • SagaLLM: Context Management, Validation, and Transaction Guarantees for Multi-Agent LLM Planning.
  • Slides | Readings E. Chang --
    5 April 14 In class debate: Can LLMs lead to AGI?
    Project team formaation.
    Slides | Readings All Addignment 1 due; Assignment 2 out
    6 April 16
  • Establishing Theoretical Foundation for Multi-LLM Joint Predition.
  • Slides | Readings E. Chang --
    7 April 21 Fine-Tuning DeepSeek R1 Slides | Readings Online Tutorials Assignment 2 due; Assignment 3 out
    8 April 23 Project Dash 1 Slides | Readings All Dash 2 starts
    9 April 28
  • Behavior Modeling: Behavioral Empotion Analysis Model for LLMs.
  • Slides | Readings E. Chang
    10 April 30
  • Reasoning: Prompting Large Language Models With the Socratic Method.
  • Slides | Readings E. Chang Assignment 3 due
    12 May 5 Highlights of Natural Language Processing History in One Lecture Slides | Readings E. Chang
    11 May 7 Project Dash 2 Slides | Readings All --
    13 May 12 Managing Information Diversity, Knowledge Exchange, and In-Context Reasoning Slides | Readings E. Chang --
    14 May 14 NeurIPS Day Slides | Readings E. Chang --
    15 May 19 Consciousness Modeling: What and Where Is It? Slides | Readings E. Chang --
    16 May 21 Consciousness Mechanics: Quantum Jump and Thermodynamics Slides | Readings E. Chang
    17 May 26 Memorial Holiday Slides | Readings -- --
    18 May 28 Course Summary and Office Hours Slides | Readings E. Chang --
    19 June 2 Final Presentation Slides | Readings Group 1 --
    20 June 4 Final Presentation Slides | Readings Group 2 --

    Assignments

    Assignment details and deadlines will be announced in class and posted here.