Welcome to Special Topics: Secure and Responsible AI - Spring 2026

Class Time and Location

Section A      M W 09:30 am – 10:50 am Eastern time    INI DEC 

Recitation Time and Location

Section A      TBD

Please download the FULL version of the course Syllabus: 14713_secureAI_Syllabus.pdf

We use Ed Discussion for discussion, Q&A, and course announcements.

• • You should receive an email invite, if you did not receive an invite, please let us know
  • For further guidance on using Ed Discussion and expectations, click here 

We use Canvas for handing out assignments, lecture slides, and access to your grades.

**If you feel unwell, please stay home, take care of yourself, and get medical help if needed.** 

Submissions

• • HW submissions should be on Gradescope.
    • Click here for guidance on Gradescope logistics and Regrade requests. 
  • All other submissions are on Canvas.

 

  Instructor: Dr. Hanan Hibshi (hhibshi at cmu : edu)

 Office hours

• • In-person: Use this link to book a slot
  • Zoom: Click here to book a slot

 

   TA office hours

TBD

 

Deadlines, Extensions, and Flexibility 

Your health and mental well-being come first, and we understand that life events happen. We offer the following flexible arrangements: 

• Paper Summaries: The lowest two grades from all paper summaries will not be counted.
• Polls and in-class activities: The lowest three grades from quizzes and activities will not be counted. 
• HW assignments: We offer three grace days that a student can use when needed; students can also gain grace day credit by submitting early click here for more details. 
• Project deadlines are firm. Grace days cannot be used with deadlines for projects. 
• For Emergencies and special accommodations, please get in touch with the instructor. 

  Short Guide

Syllabus File (PDF)

Schedule of topics/due dates in PDF (Tentative)

List of reading and summaries to complete before class (Modules)

Lecture slides/assignments/quizzes (Modules)

 CMU Library

All articles are provided free of charge and can be accessed either directly from the provided links or through the CMU Library. 

 Peer Discussion and Academic Integrity 

Students are encouraged to talk to each other, to the T.A.(s), to the instructor, or to anyone else about any of the homework assignments. Any assistance, though, must be limited to discussion of the problem and sketching general approaches to a solution. Each student must write out their own solutions to the homework. Consulting another student’s solution is prohibited and submitted solutions may not be copied from any source. These and any other form of collaboration on assignments constitute cheating. Any form of collaboration is strictly prohibited on the quizzes and is considered cheating. If you have any questions about whether some activity would constitute cheating, please feel free to ask. Cheating on an assignment/exam will result in failure of the course, and the university administration (department, college) will be notified per the appropriate procedures.

 

Simply stated, feel free to discuss problems with each other, but do not cheat. It is not worth it, and you will get caught.

Since the class allows for high-level discussions among students and to be clear we will provide examples below of what is/isn’t high-level discussion. When in doubt about whether a discussion is allowed or not, please reach out to the instructor and/or the TAs. 

The following are examples for what is considered high-level discussion:

• Mentioning/explaining GENERAL syntax. For example, how to “pipe” between C and Python.
• Explaining Unix/Linux commands
• Mentioning/explaining a good tool for debugging
• Explaining the content from the book/lecture
• Providing websites for tutorials or general information that would enhance everyone understanding
• Sharing hints that originally came from TAs (TAs provide hints in recitations, office hours etc.)

The following are examples for what is NOT considered high-level discussion and will result in an Academic Integrity Violation (AIV):

• Sharing code to be used for the solution
• Sharing detailed “how to’s” for solutions
• Sharing quiz codes 
• Sharing CTF Flags 
• Providing specific details about what to write and what to change in the code
• Looking at each other’s code (in-person, online, etc.)

 Regrets 

In life, we all make mistakes and learn from them because, in the end, we are human. To support students in learning from negative experiences, this course uses the regrets policy. 

If a student cheats or gets involved in an AIV action, but regrets their decision afterward, then they have the chance to repair the situation before it gets escalated and an AIV report is filed. Keep in mind that the student needs to report the incident/action to the instructor before the action is flagged by the instructor or TAs (for exams and quizzes, the time window is 24 hours).

As a result, we will delete the submission from our records (if we can). The student will get a zero on the assignment with no further questions asked and no AIV report to the university. Please note that getting a zero on the assignment would not impact a student's performance in the course, but an AIV would cause a student to fail the course, and the action would be reported to the university.

For exams, tests, and quizzes, the student can use the regrets policy up to 24 hours after the exam, test, or quiz. 

Note on Use of AI Tools

For this course syllabus, the term AI refers to the use of any large language models, including but not limited to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc.

The use of AI in this course is ONLY allowed for homework assignments and the Project. 

• Participation polls: Using AI is NOT allowed 
• Offline Participation Activities:  Using AI is NOT allowed 
• Exams/Tests: Using AI is NOT allowed 
• Note-taking and general use for studying lecture content. You can use AI for general knowledge prompts to speed up the search process, such as looking up terminology or asking AI to find you good resources and videos that explain a concept. You are also allowed to use AI to clean up your notes. However, the course material is COPYRIGHTED; you are not allowed to upload course slides and other content into any AI tool.
• Course Project: Using AI is allowed, but the policy and guidelines provided in the project description strictly apply. 
• HW assignments: Using AI is allowed, but the policy and guidelines provided in the assignment description strictly apply. 

Please download the FULL version of the course Syllabus: 14713_secureAI_Syllabus.pdf