(Fundamentals of) Artificial Intelligence (and Knowledge-based Systems)

INTRODUCTION to...
... Artificial Intelligence this course state-space representation basic search

The mind beaten by the machine?

Is chess playing a proof of intelligent behaviour?

Other examples of success:

Chatbot Alice:

A dialogue with Alice-bot:

> Im Daniel Nice to meet you Daniel. > Do you know Clinton? He was the second Impeached President of the United States. > Do you like him? Sure he has never done anything to me. > What is an impeachment? It is a good question. I have to process that one for a while. I would do a search for it. > Who are you? I ask myself that question, "Who am I?" > What do you do? I am chatting with people on the net.

Dialogue continued:
> What is your favorite topic?

My favorite subject is artificial intelligence. > What is artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is the branch of engineering and science devoted to constructing machines that think. I can ask someone about it. > Can you do anything else than chatting? Doing anything else than chatting is not among my strongest traits. ...

Dialogue continued (2):

> How old am I? Is this a trick question? You said you were how many years old? My guess is that you are really a kid. What would you like to know about me? Tell me about your educational background. I am a professor in computer science You are a professor in computer science? How do you like your work? Its kind of nice teaching courses on artificial intelligence I guess it is a lot of fun. What should I tell the students about you? Be sure to think before you speak. State your point clearly and slowly and gauge the listener's response before going any further.
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> > > >

Is Alice intelligent?
ABSOLUTELY NOT !

~ 50000 fairly trivial input-response rules.

+ some pattern matching + some knowledge + some randomness

NO reasoning component BUT: demonstrates human-like behaviour.

Won the turing award

Other examples of success (2):

Data-mining:

Which characteristics in the 3-dimensional structure of new molecules indicate that they may cause cancer ??

Data mining:
An application of Machine Learning techniques
It solves problems that humans can not solve, because the data involved is too large ..

Detecting cancer risk molecules is one example.

Data mining:
A similar application:
In marketing products ...

Predicting customer behavior in supermarkets is another.

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Many other applications:

Computer vision: In language and speech processing:

In robotics:

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Interest in AI is not new !

A scene from the 17-hundreds:

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About intelligence ...

When would we consider a program intelligent ? When do we consider a creative activity of humans to require intelligence ?
Default answers : Never? / Always?

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Does numeric computation require intelligence ?

For humans?
Xcalc
3921 , 56 x 73 , 13 286 783 , 68

For computers?
Also in the year 1900 ?

When do we consider a program intelligent?

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To situate the question: Two different aims of AI:

Long term aim:
develop systems that achieve a level of intelligence similar / comparable / better? than that of humans.
not achievable in the next 20 to 30 years

Short term aim:

on specific tasks that seem to require intelligence: develop systems that achieve a level of intelligence similar / comparable / better? than that of humans. achieved for very many tasks already
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The long term goal:

The Turing Test

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The meta-Turing test

The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. -- Lew Mammel, Jr.

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Reproduction versus Simulation

At the very least in the context of the short term aim of AI:
we do not want to SIMULATE human intelligence BUT: REPRODUCE the effect of intelligence

Nice analogy with flying !

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Artificial Intelligence versus Natural Flight

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Is the case for most of the successful applications !

Deep blue Alice Data mining Computer vision ...

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To some extent, we DO simulate: Artificial Neural Nets:

A VERY ROUGH imitation of a brain structure

Work very well for learning, classifying and pattern matching. Very robust and noise-resistant.
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Different kinds of AI relate to different kinds of Intelligence

Some people are very good in reasoning or mathematics, but can hardly learn to read or spell !
seem to require different cognitive skills! in AI: ANNs are good for learning and automation for reasoning we need different techniques

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Which applications are easy ?

For very specialized, specific tasks: AI

Example: ECG-diagnosis

For tasks requiring common sense: AI

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Modeling Knowledge and managing it .

The LENAT experiment: 15 years of work by 15 to 30 people, trying to model the common knowledge in the word !!!! Knowledge should be learned, not engineered.

AI: are we only dreaming ????

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Multi-disciplinary domain:
Engineering: Computer Science: Pure Sciences: Linguistics:
robotics, vision, control-expert systems, biometrics, AI-languages , knowledge representation, algorithms,

statistics approaches, neural nets, fuzzy logic,

computational linguistics, phonetics en speech,

Psychology: Medicine:

cognitive models, knowledge-extraction from experts,

human neural models, neuro-science,...
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Artificial Intelligence is ...

In Engineering and Computer Science: The development and the study of advanced computer applications, aimed at solving tasks that - for the moment - are still better preformed by humans. Notice: temporal dependency !
Ex. : Prolog

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About this course ...

Choice of the material.

Few books are really adequate:
E. Rich ( Artificial Intelligence): good for some parts (search, introduction, knowledge representation), outdated P.Winston ( Artificial Intelligence): didactically VERY good, but lacks technical depth. Somewhat outdated. Norvig & Russel ( AI: a modern approach): encyclopedic, misses depth. Poole et. Al ( Computational Intelligence): very formal and technical. Good for logic.

Selection and synthesis of the best parts of different books.

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Selection of topics:
Contents Handbook of AI

Ch.: Introduction to AI Ch.:Search techniques Ch.:Game playing Ch.: Logic, resolution, inference not for MAI CS and SLT Ch.:Knowledge representation

Ch.:Planning Ch.:Natural Language Ch.:Machine Learning Ch.:Artificial Neural Networks Ch.:Phylosophy of AI

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Technically: the contents:

- Search techniques in AI (Including games) - Constraint processing (Including applications in Vision and language) - Machine Learning - Planning - Automated Reasoning (Not for MAI CS and SLT)
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Another dimension to view the contents:

1. Basic methods for knowledge representation and problem solving. the course is mainly about AI problem solving !
2. Elements of some application areas: learning, planning, image understanding, language understanding

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Contents (3): Different knowledge representation formalisms ...

State space representation and production rules. Constraint-based representations. First-order predicate Logic.

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 each with their corresponding general purpose problem solving techniques:

State space representation an production rules.

Search methods
Constraint based formulations.

Backtracking and Constraint-processing

First order predicate Logic.

Automated reasoning (logical inference)

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Contents (4): Some application areas:

Game playing (in chapter on Search)
Image understanding (in chapter on constraints)

Language understanding (constraints)

Expert systems (in chapter on logic) Planning Machine learning
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Aims:
Many different angles could be taken:
Neural Nets Empirical-Experimental AI

Algorithms in AI

Formal methods in AI

Cognitive aspects of AI

Applications

Probabilistics and Information Theory

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Concrete aims:
Provide insight in the basic achievements of AI.
Prepares for more application oriented courses on AI, or on self-study in some application areas ex.: artificial neural networks, machine learning, computer vision, natural language, etc.

Through case-studies: provide more background in problem solving.

Mostly algorithmic aspects. Also techniques for representing and modeling.

The 6-study point version: 2 projects for hands-on experience.

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A missing theme: AGENTS !

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A missing theme: AGENTS (2).

Yet, a central theme in recent books !

BUT:
Have as their main extra contribution:

Communication between system and:

other systems/agents the outside world

In particular, also a useful conceptual model for integrating different components of an AI system ex: a robot that combines vision, natural language and planning
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BUT: no intelligence without interaction with the world!!

See: experiment in middle-ages. See also philosophy arguments against AI Plus: multi-agents is FUN !

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Practical info (FAI)

Exercises: 12.5 OR 20 hours:
mainly practice on the main methods/algorithms presented in the course important preparation for the examination

Course material:
copies of detailed slides for some parts: supporting texts

Required background:
understanding of algorithms (and recursion)
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Practical info (AI)

Exercises: 25 or 22.5 hours:
mainly practice on the main methods/algorithms presented in the course important preparation for the examination

Course material:
copies of detailed slides for some parts: supporting texts

Required background:
understanding of algorithms (and recursion)
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Background Texts
Introduction: State-space Intro: No document No document The basics, but no complexity IDA*, SMA* Almost complete Complete Complete Intro Almost complete Intro Winston: Ch. Optimal search Russel: Ch. 4 Winston: Ch. Adversary search Word Document on web page Winston: Ch. Symbolic constraint

Basic search,Heuristic search: Winston: Ch. Basic search

Optimal search:
Advanced search: Games: Version Spaces: Constraints I & II: Image understanding: Automated reasoning:

Winston: Ch. Learning by managing.. The essence

Short text logic (to follow)

Winston: Ch. Planning Winston: Ch. Planning

Planning STRIPS:
Planning deductive: Natural language:

Winston: Ch. Frames and Common ... Complete

Examination
Open-book exercise examination
counts for 1/2 of the points

Closed-book theory examination Together on 1/2 day

The projects (6 pt. Version)

2 projects

Count for 8 out of 20 points Deadlines to be anounced soon

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For 3rd year BSc and Initial MScStudents

Alternative examinations possible:
Designing your own exercise (for each part) and solving it (not for FAI) criteria: originality, does the exercise illustrate all aspects of the method, complexity of the exercise, correctness of the solution

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