(This program was formerly part of a three-course specialization called Autonomous AI for Industry. Because the software program Bonsai was discontinued, references to Bonsai have been removed. You can still learn about autonomous AI and machine teaching through our two individual courses "Designing Autonomous AI" and "Machine Teaching for Autonomous AI.")

To design an autonomous AI system, you must figure out how to distill a business challenge into its component parts. When children learn how to hit a baseball, they don’t start with fastballs. Their coaches begin with the basics: how to grip the handle of the bat, where to put their feet and how to keep their eyes on the ball. Similarly, an autonomous AI system needs a subject matter expert (SME) to break a complex process or problem into easier tasks that give the AI important clues about how to find a solution faster. In this course, you’ll learn how to create an autonomous AI design plan. By setting goals, identifying trainable skills, and employing those skills in goal-oriented strategies, you’ll incorporate your SME’s knowledge directly into your AI’s “brain,” the agent that powers your autonomous system. You'll learn when and how to combine various AI architecture design patterns, as well as how to design an advanced AI at the architectural level without worrying about the implementation of neural networks or machine learning algorithms. At the end of this course, you’ll be able to: • Interview SMEs to extract their unique knowledge about a system or process • Combine reinforcement learning with expert rules, optimization and mathematical calculations in an AI brain • Design an autonomous AI brain from modular components to guide the learning process for a particular task • Validate your brain design against existing expertise and techniques for solving problems • Produce a detailed specifications document so that someone else can build your AI brain