Introduction to Artificial

Intelligence
Stuart J. Russell and Peter
Norvig
 Introduction
Intelligence is important to humans and we have tried to understand ‘how we think’ since thousand of
years.

John McCarthy coined the term ―Artificial Intelligence which he would define as ―the science and
engineering of making intelligent machines.

The field of artificial intelligence, or AI, goes further still:

it attempts not just to understand but also to build intelligent entities.

Intelligence as ‘the ability to learn and understand, to solve problems and to make decisions’.

AI currently encompasses a huge variety of subfields, ranging from general-purpose areas, such as
learning and perception to such specific tasks as playing chess, proving mathematical, theorems,
writing poetry, and diagnosing diseases.
Application of AI
1.1 What is AI? Four Main Views/ Approaches
 Acting humanly: The turing test approach
 The turing Test, proposed by Alan Turing (1950), was designed to provide a satisfactoryoperational definition
of intelligence.
Instead of asking whether machine can act , we should ask whether machines can pass a behavioral
intelligence test- Alan turing.
 Six disciplines/ capabilies : computer need to pass test

Natural language processing: communicate successfully in English.

Knowledge representation to store what it knows or hears.

Automated reasoning to use the stored information to answer questions and to draw

new conclusions.

Machine learning to adapt to new circumstances and to detect and extrapolate patterns.

weather forecasting system

Computer vision to perceive objects.

Robotics to manipulate objects and move about.

 Thinking humanly: The cognitive modeling approach
For us to say that program thinks like a human, we must have some way of determining how humans
think.
There are two ways to understand how human thinks
through introspector-trying to catch our own thoughts as they go by.
 through psychological experiments- observing a person in action.
sufficiently precise theory of mind==express the theory as program.
Allen newell and Herbet simon developed GPS program. concerned with comparing the trace of its
reasoning steps to traces of human
subjects solving the same problems.
cognitive science brings together computer models from AI and experimental techniques from
psychology to try to construct precise and testable theories of the workings of the human mind.
Thinking rationally: The "laws of thought" approach

Aristotle was one of the first to attempt to codify "right thinking,“

Syllogisms example, "Socrates is a man; all men are mortal; therefore, Socrates is mortal.“
Mind operates using these laws of thoughts –logic
We will be able to write programs that take sentences and they come up with conclusions.
There are two main obstacles to this approach
1. it is not easy to take informal knowledge and state it in the formal terms required by logical
notation, particularly when the knowledge is less than 100% certain.
2. there is a big difference between being able to solve a problem "in principle" and doing so in
practice
Acting rationally: The rational agent approach

Agent is just something that acts.

Agent vs program- programs do somethings. Agents are expected to do more :
operate autonomously, perceive environment, adapt to change, create and
pursue goal.
Rational agent is one that acts so as to achieve the best outcome or, when
there is uncertainty,
the best expected outcome.
Acting rational but not thinking rationally. Example reflex action hot stove
Modern AI focus on designing agent that acts rationally.
FOUNDATIONS OF AI
The foundation provides the disciplines that contributed ideas, viewpoints and techniques to AI.
1. Philosophy
2. Mathematics
3. Economics
4. Neuroscience
5. Psychology
6. Computer engineering
7. Control theory and cybernetics
8. Linguistics
1. Philosophy : to solve specific problem- basic nature of knowledge, reality,
existence.
 Can formal rules be used to draw valid conclusions?
Where does knowledge come from?
 How does knowledge lead to action?
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), was the first to formulate a precise set of laws governing
the rational part of the mind. He developed an informal system of syllogisms for
proper reasoning.

1.
Hobbes proposed that reasoning was like numerical computation,
that "we add and subtract in our silent thoughts.

Ramon Lull – reasoning could actually be carried out by a mechanical artifact.

consider the mind as a physical system.
Dualism- there is a part of the human mind (or soul or spirit) that is outside of nature, exempt from
physical laws.
Materialism- which holds that the brain's operation according to the laws of physics constitutes the
mind.
Empiricism- Nothing is in the understanding, which was not first in the senses.
Induction: deriving generalizations or patterns based on observations of repeated associations
between elements or events.
Logical positivism: all knowledge can be characterized by logical theories connected, ultimately, to
observation sentences that correspond to sensory inputs.
Confirmation theory: attempted to understand how knowledge can be acquired from experience.
2. Mathematics

 What are the formal rules to draw valid conclusions?

 What can be computed?
Formulations- three fundamental areas: logic, computation, and probability.
George Boole- worked out the details of propositional, or Boolean, logic.
Euclid algorithm-GCD.
Incompleteness theorem
Intractability: a problem is called intractable if the time required to solve
instances of the problem grows exponentially with the size of the instances. TSP
3. Economics

When we are developing AI product, we should make decision for when to invest, how much,
where to????

To answer these questions one should have knowledge about decision theory, game theory,
operation research field
How should we make decisions so as to maximize payoff?
How should we do this when others may not go along?
How should we do this when the payoff may be far in the future?
Adam Smith was first to treat economic as science.
Economies defined as consisting of individual agents maximizing their own economic well-being.
Decision theory provides a formal and systematic framework for decision-making under
uncertainty.
 4.Neuroscience

 How do brain process information?

 Neuroscience is the study of the nervous system, particularly the brain.
Hans Berger in 1929 invented electroencephalogram (EEG), is a medical test used to
measure the electrical activity of the brain.
 The recent development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is giving neuroscientists
unprecedentedly detailed images of brain activity.


5. Psychology

 How do humans and animals think and act?

 Contributes to AI's understanding of human behavior, cognition, and perception,

influencing the development of human-centric AI applications.

The origins of scientific psychology- German physicist Hermann and his student applied the
scientific method to the study of human vision.

 Behaviorism movement/ folk : percepts and actions.

Cognitive philosophy : views the brain as an information processing device.

6. Computer engineering
 How can we build an efficient computer?
 For artificial intelligence to succeed, we need two things: intelligence and an artifact.
The electromechanical computer created in 1940 by a team led by Alan Turing.
The first operational programmable computer was the Z-3.
Knowledge and skills- develop the hardware, software, and infrastructure that power AI
technologies, enabling the creation of intelligent systems.
 7. Control Theory and Cybernetics

How can artifacts operate under their own control?

Control theory deals with the behavior of dynamical systems and how to manipulate their inputs to
achieve desired outputs or states.
Cybernetics is a field that looks at how different systems, like machines,

animals, or even organizations, control and communicate with each other.

Example thermostat
Ktesibios of Alexandria (c. 250 B.c.) built the first self-controlling machine:

a water clock with a regulator.

8. Linguistic

How does language relate to thought?

In 1957, Skinner published verbal behavior. He believed that language, like any other behavior, is
learned through a process of trial and error.
Chomsky- Syntactic Structures. humans are born with an innate ability to understand and
produce language.
Modern linguistics and AI were ―born at about the same time, and grew up together,
intersecting in a hybrid field called computational linguistics or natural language processing.
History of AI
The gestation of artificial intelligence (1943-1955)

Year 1943: The first work in AI done by Warren McCulloch and Walter pits in
1943. They proposed a model of artificial neurons. On / off state.
Year 1949: Donald Hebb demonstrated an updating rule for modifying the
connection strength between neurons. His rule is now called Hebbian
learning.
Year 1950: Alan Turing publishes "Computing Machinery and Intelligence“.
Year 1956 : Artificial Intelligence first adopted by American Computer scientist
John McCarthy
The birth of artificial intelligence (1956)

Dartmouth Conference (1956):

 Early enthusiasm, great expectations (1952-1969)
McCarthy defined the high-level language Lisp.

Minsky microworlds.
Dose of reality(1966-1973)
Year 1966: The researchers emphasized developing algorithms which can solve
mathematical problems. Joseph Weizenbaum created the first chatbot in 1966,
which was named as ELIZA.
Year 1972: The first intelligent humanoid robot was built in Japan which was
named as WABOT-1.
Knowledge based systems: the key to power(1969-1979)
AI becomes an industry(1980-present)
The return of neural networks(1986-present)
AI becomes a Science(1987-present)
The emergence of intelligent agents(1995-present)