Artificial Intelligence
Introductory Lecture
Jennifer J. Burg
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
What is intelligence?
•The ability to perceive one’s surroundings,
learn about one’s environment, and react
appropriately to it.
•The ability to respond to novel situations.
•The ability to reason.
•The ability to use language.
•An awareness of one’s existence and
reasoning abilities.
What is artificial intelligence?
The study of computations that make it possible to
perceive, act, and reason.
The enterprise of constructing a machine that can
reliably pass the Turing test.
Student answers to the question
“What is artificial intelligence?”
An attempt to make computers go through a
mechanical sequence of steps that mimic
(and in many instances improve upon) the
action of the human brain.
Student answers to the question
“What is artificial intelligence?”
A set of rules to perform simple or complex
tasks.
Student answers to the question
“What is artificial intelligence?”
Artificial intelligence is the ability of a
machine to achieve intelligence.
It is the science of simulating human
intelligence through software.
Student answers to the question
“What is artificial intelligence?”
Needed for intelligence:
•A set of rules for logic and prioritizing
•An understanding of language for I/O -- a
symbolic representation of knowledge
•A searchable memory
•Input devices to approximate the natural senses
Some interesting questions
Can a computer ever be considered
intelligent, since it can’t really do anything
other than what it is programmed to do?
Can we consider a machine intelligent if it
doesn’t have any understanding of what it
is doing?
Are computers really intelligent?
Lady Ada Lovelace, commenting on
Babbage’s Analytical Engine:
“It has no pretensions to originate
anything. It can do whatever we know
how to order it to perform.”
What can’t a computer do?
“Be kind, resourceful, beautiful, friendly,
have initiative, have a sense of humor, tell
right from wrong, make mistakes, fall in
love, enjoy strawberries and cream, make
someone fall in love with it, learn from
experience, use words properly, be the
subject of its own thought, have as much
diversity of behavior as man, do
something really new.” (Alan Turing,
1950)
Are computers really intelligent?
“Not until a machine could write a sonnet
or compose a concerto because of
thoughts and emotions felt, and not by the
chance fall of symbols, could we agree
that machine equals brain -- that is, not
only write it but know that it had written
it.”
Which of these could be considered an
application of AI?
•An expert system for diagnosing illnesses
•A word processing program
•A program that does a Fast Fourier transform
•A sorting program
•A program that reads paragraphs in English
and then answers comprehension questions
about them
•A theorem-proving program
•A program that plays chess
What’s different about the types of
programs which are generally
considered examples of artificial
intelligence?
The computer is given some knowledge of “the
world” and some reasoning ability, and then
•it is expected to derive additional conclusions on
the basis of what it has been told,
•it is asked to answer questions based on what it
knows, or
•it is expected to react in reasonable ways to the
novel situations in which it finds itself
Let’s be clear about our goals in
artificial intelligence
We might want to create a machine that can
solve problems intelligently so that the machine
can take over some human tasks. (This would be
a performance-oriented system.)
OR
We might want to create a machine that thinks
the way humans think so that we can understand
our own intelligence better. (This would be a
simulation-oriented system.)
Basic Topics in AI Research
(used by other areas within AI)
Knowledge representation
Search algorithms and heuristics
Formal logic and automated reasoning
Important Specialized Fields in AI
In the area of perception:
Computer vision
Voice recognition
Robotics
Important Specialized Fields in AI
In the area of reasoning, problem-solving,
and communicating:
Automatic Theorem-Proving
Logic Programming
Constraint Satisfaction Problems
Game Playing
Natural Language Processing
Planning
Learning
Expert Systems
Related Areas of Research
Psychology
Cognitive Science
Mathematics (Logic, Computability
Theory)
Philosophy
Linguistics
Computer Engineering