Artificial Intelligence
1
Introduction
• AI is a branch of Computer • AI systems also
Science concerned with can understand a
the study and creation of natural language
computer systems. or perceive and
• AI exhibits some form of comprehend a
intelligence: visual scene, and
– systems that learn new perform other
concepts and tasks, types of feats that
require human
– can reason and draw types of
useful conclusions
intelligence.
about the world.
• Understanding of AI requires an
understanding of terms like
– Intelligence
– Knowledge
– Reasoning
– Thought
– Cognition
– Learning
– And number of computer related terms
Introduction
• What is AI?
• The foundations of AI
• A brief history of AI
• The state of the art
• Introductory problems
4
What is AI?
• Intelligence: “ability to learn, understand and think”
(Oxford dictionary)
• AI is the study of how to make computers do things
which at the moment people do better.
• Examples: Speech recognition, Smell, Face, Object,
Intuition, Inferencing, Learning new skills, Decision
making, Abstract thinking
5
What is AI?
Thinking humanly Thinking rationally
Acting humanly Acting rationally
6
Acting Humanly: The Turing Test
• Alan Turing (1912-1954)
• “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (1950)
Imitation Game
Human
Human Interrogator
AI System
7
Acting Humanly: The Turing Test
• Predicted that by 2000, a machine might have a 30%
chance of fooling a lay person for 5 minutes.
• Anticipated all major arguments against AI in
following 50 years.
• Suggested major components of AI: knowledge,
reasoning, language, understanding, learning.
8
Thinking Humanly: Cognitive Modelling
• Not content to have a program correctly solving a
problem.
More concerned with comparing its reasoning steps
to traces of human solving the same problem.
• Requires testable theories of the workings of the
human mind: cognitive science.
9
Thinking Rationally: Laws of Thought
• Aristotle was one of the first to attempt to codify “right
thinking”, i.e., unquestionable reasoning processes.
• Formal logic provides a precise notation and rules for
representing and reasoning with all kinds of things in
the world.
• Obstacles:
− Informal knowledge representation.
− Computational complexity and resources.
10
Acting Rationally
• Acting so as to achieve one’s goals, given one’s
beliefs.
• Does not necessarily involve thinking.
• Advantages:
− More general than the “laws of thought” approach.
− More amenable to scientific development than human-
based approaches.
11
The Foundations of AI
• Philosophy (423 BC − present):
− Logic, methods of reasoning.
− Mind as a physical system.
− Foundations of learning, language, and rationality.
• Mathematics (c.800 − present):
− Formal representation and proof.
− Algorithms, computation, decidability, tractability.
− Probability.
12
The Foundations of AI
• Psychology (1879 − present):
− Adaptation.
− Phenomena of perception and motor control.
− Experimental techniques.
• Linguistics (1957 − present):
− Knowledge representation.
− Grammar.
13
A Brief History of AI
• The gestation of AI (1943 − 1956):
− 1943: McCulloch & Pitts: Boolean circuit model of brain.
− 1950: Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”.
− 1956: McCarthy’s name “Artificial Intelligence” adopted.
• Early enthusiasm, great expectations (1952 − 1969):
− Early successful AI programs: Samuel’s checkers,
Newell & Simon’s Logic Theorist, Gelernter’s Geometry
Theorem Prover.
− Robinson’s complete algorithm for logical reasoning.
14
A Brief History of AI
• A dose of reality (1966 − 1974):
− AI discovered computational complexity.
− Neural network research almost disappeared after
Minsky & Papert’s book in 1969.
• Knowledge-based systems (1969 − 1979):
− 1969: DENDRAL by Buchanan et al..
− 1976: MYCIN by Shortliffle.
− 1979: PROSPECTOR by Duda et al..
15
A Brief History of AI
• AI becomes an industry (1980 − 1988):
− Expert systems industry booms.
− 1981: Japan’s 10-year Fifth Generation project.
• The return of NNs and novel AI (1986 − present):
− Mid 80’s: Back-propagation learning algorithm reinvented.
− Expert systems industry busts.
− 1988: Resurgence of probability.
− 1988: Novel AI (ALife, GAs, Soft Computing, …).
− 1995: Agents everywhere.
− 2003: Human-level AI back on the agenda.
16
Task Domains of AI
• Ordinary Tasks:
– Perception
• Vision
• Speech
– Natural Languages
• Understanding
• Generation
• Translation
– Common sense reasoning
– Robot Control
• Formal Tasks
– Games : chess, checkers etc
– Mathematics: Geometry, logic,Proving properties of programs
• Expert Tasks:
– Engineering ( Design, Fault finding, Manufacturing planning)
– Scientific Analysis
– Medical Diagnosis
– Financial Analysis
17
