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What percent of undergrads at select US universities will be enrolled in introductory ML classes?

Cross-posted on Metaculus AI Forecasting.

More undergraduate students at top US universities seem to be taking machine learning classes. The 2018 AI Index report (pg. 22) has analysed enrolment data for introductory AI and introductory ML courses over time at many leading universities in the US. These universities were: University of California Berkeley, Stanford University, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, University of Washington-Seattle, Carnegie Mellon University. The percentage of undergraduates taking introductory ML courses averaged over the universities has been mostly increasing over the 2010-2017 period, and peaked in 2017:

  • 2010: 1.24%
  • 2011: 1.45%
  • 2012: 2.27%
  • 2013: 2.94%
  • 2014: 3.41%
  • 2015: 4.18%
  • 2016: 3.54%
  • 2017: 4.35%

From AI Index’s 2018 annual report (p. 75):

Methodology

We requested enrolment in introductory AI and introductory ML courses over time at many leading computer science universities in the U.S. Several schools participated. Enrolment counts were not included in our analysis if the school did not include sufficient historical data, or if the data was overly nuanced. Some schools provided enrolment by semester, and some provided it by year. In order to compare schools to each other, we collapsed semester enrolment data to show full academic years. Additionally, some schools had multiple courses that were considered “introductory” while others just had one. When appropriate and relevant, multiple courses were combined to show one “introductory AI” trend line. For enrolment as a percent of the undergraduate population, each year’s AI / ML enrolment was divided by the undergraduate population for that same year. This is a calculated field intended to show trends in enrolment on an even playing field across schools.

Nuance

  • Nearly every school noted that enrolment, particularly in recent years, is a function of supply, rather than student demand. Our data shows the number of students that were successfully enrolled in a course, and does not account for waitlists or other demand metrics.
  • Courses are generally open to undergraduates only, and can typically be taken by majors and non-majors. Some courses have changed their names over time, we show course names as of 2017 below. We also list any additional details / nuances that school administrators were able to provide on the enrolment data.

What percent of undergrads at select US universities will be enrolled in introductory ML classes in 2019?

Resolution

This resolves as the percent of undergraduates enrolled in introductory ML courses in the year 2019, averaged over the following universities: University of California Berkeley, Stanford University, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, University of Washington-Seattle, Carnegie Mellon University. The question resolves ambiguous if the data for any of these universities is not reported in the 2020 AI Index.

Data

Historical data can be found here. Please make a copy by clicking "file" and then "make a copy" if you wish to edit it.

Categories: Computer Science – AI and Machine Learning

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