Intelligent Technology (specialisation)

Entry requirements

A completed Bachelor's degree

A completed Bachelor's degree (this does not include a Bachelor’s from a University of Applied Science, in Dutch HBO) in Artificial Intelligence or a related programme with a comparable content that sufficiently prepares for an advanced master program in AI. An acceptable applicant should have some knowledge of Computer Science (in particular sufficient programming experience and software development experience, about 15-24 EC), Artificial Intelligence techniques (search/planning/representation algorithms, machine learning, reasoning under uncertainty, neural networks, logics, and robotics, about 36-42 EC), Mathematics (calculus, linear algebra, statistics, about 15-18 EC), and some Cognitive Science (e.g. cognitive psychology or cognitive neuroscience).

Proficiency in English

In order to take part in this programme, you need to demonstrate fluency in both written and spoken English. Students with a Dutch VWO diploma or an English Bachelor are considered sufficiently proficient in English. Other non-native speakers of English* must obtain one of the following certificates:

• A TOEFL score of ≥575 (paper based) or ≥90 (internet based)
• An IELTS score of ≥6.5
• Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English (CAE) or Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE) with a mark of C or higher

Students with an international Bachelor’s degree will be asked to upload these documents as part of the admission processes.

* Applicants are considered to be a native speaker of English if they are from Australia, Canada (with exception of Quebec), Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, UK, USA or South Africa.

Months of entry

February, September

Course content

Developing intelligent machines and new ways for humans and machines to interact, as well as understanding cognition through human behavior.

Language and Communication Technology lies at the basis of innumerable innovations in our society and has provided remarkable new services (e.g. social media) and products (e.g. smart phones and tablets). This communication can be in natural language such as Watson, Siri, and Twitter, or understood through a machine learning lens, as in sentiment analysis (e.g., of brands, or emotions), epidemic monitoring, and botnet detection. But communication is also crucial for personalizing information and making it accessible using other means, such as automatic text summarization, visualizations, and chatbots. Robots are bringing interactions with humans into the physical world, opening channels of nonverbal communication, as well as introducing a host of challenging problems of perception (e.g., object recognition) and action (e.g., navigation).

In the Intelligent Technology track of the Master’s degree programme in Artificial Intelligence, we concentrate on these techniques in the broad field of communication and interaction between multiple intelligent agents (be they natural or artificial—and physical, or virtual) with a special focus on language. We address theoretical problems such as: How language can arise and evolve in communities of intelligent agents? and How can an understanding of language and communication can be used to improve the interactions between intelligent agents? One particular application area we focus on is how to use artificial intelligence techniques to better understand and improve interactions between agents—be they chatbots, people, or robots.

In this specialisation you will learn the psychology of human language and communication and how computers can be used to model and understand this type of interaction data, be it textual, spoken, tweets or clicks. You will also learn how to process the large amounts of data from interactions that arise on the web, and in robot-human interaction. As most interactions on the web are mediated through apps on smart devices, these courses are complemented by the App-Lab course which teaches you how to set-up, build and evaluate apps to facilitate communication and interaction. You will also learn how to build artificial agents and robots that interact with the physical and social environment. By building such systems you will learn more about how human cognition works.

*This is a specialisation of the Master's in Artificial Intelligence

To apply for this course, please contact us by e-mail.

Fees and funding