The History of Artificial Intelligence Timeline of major AI events Outline: Introduction Era of the Electronic Computer Beginnings of AI knowledge

Expansion The multitude of Programs Transition from lab to life AI put to the test The Beginnings of AI: Although the computer provided the technology necessary for AI, it was not until the early 1950's that the link between human intelligence and machines was real ly observed. Norbert Wiener was one of the first Americans to make observations on the principle of feedback theory feedback theory. The most familiar example o f feedback theory is the thermostat: It controls the temperature of an environme nt by gathering the actual temperature of the house, comparing it to the desired temperature, and responding by turning the heat up or down. What was so importa nt about his research into feedback loops was that Wiener theorized that all int elligent behavior was the result of feedback mechanisms. Mechanisms that could p ossibly be simulated by machines. This discovery influenced much of early develo pment of AI. In late 1955, Newell and Simon developed The Logic Theorist, considered by many to be the first AI program. The program, representing each problem as a tree mod el, would attempt to solve it by selecting the branch that would most likely res ult in the correct conclusion. The impact that the logic theorist made on both t he public and the field of AI has made it a crucial stepping stone in developing the AI field. In 1956 John McCarthy regarded as the father of AI, organized a conference to dr aw the talent and expertise of others interested in machine intelligence for a m onth of brainstorming. He invited them to Vermont for "The Dartmouth summer rese arch project on artificial intelligence." From that point on, because of McCarth y, the field would be known as Artificial intelligence. Although not a huge succ ess, (explain) the Dartmouth conference did bring together the founders in AI, a nd served to lay the groundwork for the future of AI research. Knowledge Expansion In the seven years after the conference, AI began to pick up momentum. Although the field was still undefined, ideas formed at the conference were re-examined, and built upon. Centers for AI research began forming at Carnegie Mellon and MIT , and a new challenges were faced: further research was placed upon creating sys tems that could efficiently solve problems, by limiting the search, such as the Logic Theorist. And second, making systems that could learn by themselves. In 1957, the first version of a new program The General Problem Solver(GPS) was tested. The program developed by the same pair which developed the Logic Theoris t. The GPS was an extension of Wiener's feedback principle, and was capable of s olving a greater extent of common sense problems. A couple of years after the GP S, IBM contracted a team to research artificial intelligence. Herbert Gelerneter spent 3 years working on a program for solving geometry theorems. While more programs were being produced, McCarthy was busy developing a major br eakthrough in AI history. In 1958 McCarthy announced his new development; the LI

SP language, which is still used today. LISP stands for LISt Processing, and was soon adopted as the language of choice among most AI developers. In 1963 MIT received a 2.2 million dollar grant from the United States governmen t to be used in researching Machine-Aided Cognition (artificial intelligence). T he grant by the Department of Defense's Advanced research projects Agency (ARPA) , to ensure that the US would stay ahead of the Soviet Union in technological ad vancements. The project served to increase the pace of development in AI researc h, by drawing computer scientists from around the world, and continues funding. The Multitude of programs The next few years showed a multitude of programs, one notably was SHRDLU. SHRDL U was part of the microworlds project, which consisted of research and programmi ng in small worlds (such as with a limited number of geometric shapes). The MIT researchers headed by Marvin Minsky, demonstrated that when confined to a small subject matter, computer programs could solve spatial problems and logic problem s. Other programs which appeared during the late 1960's were STUDENT, which coul d solve algebra story problems, and SIR which could understand simple English se ntences. The result of these programs was a refinement in language comprehension and logic. Another advancement in the 1970's was the advent of the expert system. Expert sy stems predict the probability of a solution under set conditions. For example: Because of the large storage capacity of computers at the time, expert systems h ad the potential to interpret statistics, to formulate rules. And the applicatio ns in the market place were extensive, and over the course of ten years, expert systems had been introduced to forecast the stock market, aiding doctors with th e ability to diagnose disease, and instruct miners to promising mineral location s. This was made possible because of the systems ability to store conditional ru les, and a storage of information. During the 1970's Many new methods in the development of AI were tested, notably Minsky's frames theory. Also David Marr proposed new theories about machine vis ion, for example, how it would be possible to distinguish an image based on the shading of an image, basic information on shapes, color, edges, and texture. Wit h analysis of this information, frames of what an image might be could then be r eferenced. another development during this time was the PROLOGUE language. The l anguage was proposed for In 1972, During the 1980's AI was moving at a faster pace, and further into the corporate sector. In 1986, US sales of AI-related hardware and software surged to $425 mi llion. Expert systems in particular demand because of their efficiency. Companie s such as Digital Electronics were using XCON, an expert system designed to prog ram the large VAX computers. DuPont, General Motors, and Boeing relied heavily o n expert systems Indeed to keep up with the demand for the computer experts, com panies such as Teknowledge and Intellicorp specializing in creating software to aid in producing expert systems formed. Other expert systems were designed to fi nd and correct flaws in existing expert systems. The Transition from Lab to Life The impact of the computer technology, AI included was felt. No longer was the c omputer technology just part of a select few researchers in laboratories. The pe rsonal computer made its debut along with many technological magazines. Such fou ndations as the American Association for Artificial Intelligence also started. T here was also, with the demand for AI development, a push for researchers to joi n private companies. 150 companies such as DEC which employed its AI research gr oup of 700 personnel, spend $1 billion on internal AI groups.

Other fields of AI also made there way into the marketplace during the 1980's. O ne in particular was the machine vision field. The work by Minsky and Marr were now the foundation for the cameras and computers on assembly lines, performing q uality control. Although crude, these systems could distinguish differences shap es in objects using black and white differences. By 1985 over a hundred companie s offered machine vision systems in the US, and sales totaled $80 million. The 1980's were not totally good for the AI industry. In 1986-87 the demand in A I systems decreased, and the industry lost almost a half of a billion dollars. C ompanies such as Teknowledge and Intellicorp together lost more than $6 million, about a third of there total earnings. The large losses convinced many research leaders to cut back funding. Another disappointment was the so called "smart tr uck" financed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The projects goa l was to develop a robot that could perform many battlefield tasks. In 1989, due to project setbacks and unlikely success, the Pentagon cut funding for the proj ect. Despite these discouraging events, AI slowly recovered. New technology in Japan was being developed. Fuzzy logic, first pioneered in the US has the unique abili ty to make decisions under uncertain conditions. Also neural networks were being reconsidered as possible ways of achieving Artificial Intelligence. The 1980's introduced to its place in the corporate marketplace, and showed the technology had real life uses, ensuring it would be a key in the 21st century. AI put to the Test The military put AI based hardware to the test of war during Desert Storm. AI-ba sed technologies were used in missile systems, heads-up-displays, and other adva ncements. AI has also made the transition to the home. With the popularity of th e AI computer growing, the interest of the public has also grown. Applications f or the Apple Macintosh and IBM compatible computer, such as voice and character recognition have become available. Also AI technology has made steadying camcord ers simple using fuzzy logic. With a greater demand for AI-related technology, n ew advancements are becoming available. Inevitably Artificial Intelligence has, and will continue to affecting our lives. [ HOME ] [ Basics | History | Approaches | Applications | Interactive | People | Links | Messages | Programs] About This Site > Library > FAQ > 7,000+ sites by kids for kids Privacy Policy Terms of Use

Methods used to create intelligence. Outline: Introduction Neural Networks

The structure of Neurons Binary Neuron Theory Boole and Logic Brain Circuits and parallel computation Constraints Impressive results and Conclusion Problem Solving Chess Expert systems Frames and Knowledge representation Conclusion Introduction In the quest to create intelligent machines, the field of Artificial Intelligenc e has split into several different approaches based on the opinions about the mo st promising methods and theories. These rivaling theories have lead researchers in one of two basic approaches; bottom-up and top-down. Bottom-up theorists bel ieve the best way to achieve artificial intelligence is to build electronic repl icas of the human brain's complex network of neurons, while the top-down approac h attempts to mimic the brain's behavior with computer programs. Neural Networks and Parallel Computation The human brain is made up of a web of billions of cells called neurons, and und erstanding its complexities is seen as one of the last frontiers in scientific r esearch. It is the aim of AI researchers who prefer this bottom-up approach to c onstruct electronic circuits that act as neurons do in the human brain. Although much of the working of the brain remains unknown, the complex network of neuron s is what gives humans intelligent characteristics. By itself, a neuron is not i ntelligent, but when grouped together, neurons are able to pass electrical signa ls through networks. The neuron "firing", passing a signal to the next in the chain. Research has shown that a signal received by a neuron travels through the dendri te region, and down the axon. Separating nerve cells is a gap called the synapse . In order for the signal to be transferred to the next neuron, the signal must be converted from electrical to chemical energy. The signal can then be received by the next neuron and processed. Warren McCulloch after completing medical school at Yale, along with Walter Pitt s a mathematician proposed a hypothesis to explain the fundamentals of how neura l networks made the brain work. Based on experiments with neurons, McCulloch and Pitts showed that neurons might be considered devices for processing binary num bers. An important back of mathematic logic, binary numbers (represented as 1's and 0's or true and false) were also the basis of the electronic computer. This link is the basis of computer-simulated neural networks, also know as Parallel c omputing. A century earlier the true / false nature of binary numbers was theorized in 185 4 by George Boole in his postulates concerning the Laws of Thought. Boole's prin ciples make up what is known as Boolean algebra, the collection of logic concern ing AND, OR, NOT operands. For example according to the Laws of thought the stat ement: (for this example consider all apples red) Apples are red-- is True Apples are red AND oranges are purple-- is False Apples are red OR oranges are purple-- is True Apples are red AND oranges are NOT purple-- is also True Boole also assumed that the human mind works according to these laws, it perform s logical operations that could be reasoned. Ninety years later, Claude Shannon applied Boole's principles in circuits, the blueprint for electronic computers. Boole's contribution to the future of computing and Artificial Intelligence was

immeasurable, and his logic is the basis of neural networks. McCulloch and Pitts, using Boole's principles, wrote a paper on neural network t heory. The thesis dealt with how the networks of connected neurons could perform logical operations. It also stated that, one the level of a single neuron, the release or failure to release an impulse was the basis by which the brain makes true / false decisions. Using the idea of feedback theory, they described the lo op which existed between the senses ---> brain ---> muscles, and likewise conclu ded that Memory could be defined as the signals in a closed loop of neurons. Alt hough we now know that logic in the brain occurs at a level higher then McCulloc h and Pitts theorized, their contributions were important to AI because they sho wed how the firing of signals between connected neurons could cause the brains t o make decisions. McCulloch and Pitt's theory is the basis of the artificial neu ral network theory. Using this theory, McCulloch and Pitts then designed electronic replicas of neur al networks, to show how electronic networks could generate logical processes. T hey also stated that neural networks may, in the future, be able to learn, and r ecognize patterns. The results of their research and two of Weiner's books serve d to increase enthusiasm, and laboratories of computer simulated neurons were se t up across the country. Two major factors have inhibited the development of full scale neural networks. Because of the expense of constructing a machine to simulate neurons, it was exp ensive even to construct neural networks with the number of neurons in an ant. A lthough the cost of components have decreased, the computer would have to grow t housands of times larger to be on the scale of the human brain. The second facto r is current computer architecture. The standard Von Neuman computer, the archit ecture of nearly all computers, lacks an adequate number of pathways between com ponents. Researchers are now developing alternate architectures for use with neu ral networks. Even with these inhibiting factors, artificial neural networks have presented so me impressive results. Frank Rosenblatt, experimenting with computer simulated n etworks, was able to create a machine that could mimic the human thinking proces s, and recognize letters. But, with new top-down methods becoming popular, paral lel computing was put on hold. Now neural networks are making a return, and some researchers believe that with new computer architectures, parallel computing an d the bottom-up theory will be a driving factor in creating artificial intellige nce. Top Down Approaches; Expert Systems Because of the large storage capacity of computers, expert systems had the poten tial to interpret statistics, in order to formulate rules. An expert system work s much like a detective solves a mystery. Using the information, and logic or ru les, an expert system can solve the problem. For example it the expert system wa s designed to distinguish birds it may have the following:

Charts like these represent the logic of expert systems. Using a similar set of rules, experts can have a variety of applications. With improved interfacing, co mputers may begin to find a larger place in society. Chess AI-based game playing programs combine intelligence with entertainment. On game with strong AI ties is chess. World-champion chess playing programs can see ahea d twenty plus moves in advance for each move they make. In addition, the program s have an ability to get progressably better over time because of the ability to learn. Chess programs do not play chess as humans do. In three minutes, Deep Th ought (a master program) considers 126 million moves, while human chessmaster on average considers less than 2 moves. Herbert Simon suggested that human chess m

asters are familiar with favorable board positions, and the relationship with th ousands of pieces in small areas. Computers on the other hand, do not take hunch es into account. The next move comes from exhaustive searches into all moves, an d the consequences of the moves based on prior learning. Chess programs, running on Cray super computers have attained a rating of 2600 (senior master), in the range of Gary Kasparov, the Russian world champion. Frames On method that many programs use to represent knowledge are frames. Pioneered by Marvin Minsky, frame theory revolves around packets of information. For example , say the situation was a birthday party. A computer could call on its birthday frame, and use the information contained in the frame, to apply to the situation . The computer knows that there is usually cake and presents because of the info rmation contained in the knowledge frame. Frames can also overlap, or contain su b-frames. The use of frames also allows the computer to add knowledge. Although not embraced by all AI developers, frames have been used in comprehension progra ms such as Sam. Conclusion This page touched on some of the main methods used to create intelligence. These approaches have been applied to a variety of programs. As we progress in the de velopment of Artificial Intelligence, other theories will be available, in addit ion to building on today's methods.

Essays on the use of AI. Library of Essays: What we can do with AI--Adam Dyess programs of the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute--Adam Dyess Apple Computers and AI--Adam Dyess The scope of Expert Systems-- Tim Dumm Add an Essay! What we can do with AI We have been studying this issue of AI application for quite some time now and k now all the terms and facts. But what we all really need to know is what can we do to get our hands on some AI today. How can we as individuals use our own tech nology? We hope to discuss this in depth (but as briefly as possible) so that yo u the consumer can use AI as it is intended. First, we should be prepared for a change. Our conservative ways stand in the wa y of progress. AI is a new step that is very helpful to the society. Machines ca n do jobs that require detailed instructions followed and mental alertness. AI w ith its learning capabilities can accomplish those tasks but only if the worlds conservatives are ready to change and allow this to be a possibility. It makes u s think about how early man finally accepted the wheel as a good invention, not something taking away from its heritage or tradition. Secondly, we must be prepared to learn about the capabilities of AI. The more us e we get out of the machines the less work is required by us. In turn less injur ies and stress to human beings. Human beings are a species that learn by trying,

and we must be prepared to give AI a chance seeing AI as a blessing, not an inh ibition. Finally, we need to be prepared for the worst of AI. Something as revolutionary as AI is sure to have many kinks to work out. There is always that fear that if AI is learning based, will machines learn that being rich and successful is a go od thing, then wage war against economic powers and famous people? There are so many things that can go wrong with a new system so we must be as prepared as we can be for this new technology. However, even though the fear of the machines are there, their capabilities are infinite Whatever we teach AI, they will suggest in the future if a positive out come arrives from it. AI are like children that need to be taught to be kind, we ll mannered, and intelligent. If they are to make important decisions, they shou ld be wise. We as citizens need to make sure AI programmers are keeping things o n the level. We should be sure they are doing the job correctly, so that no futu re accidents occur. AIAI Teaching Computers Computers Does this sound a little Redundant? Or maybe a little redundant? Well just sit b ack and let me explain. The Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute has m any project that they are working on to make their computers learn how to operat e themselves with less human input. To have more functionality with less input i s an operation for AI technology. I will discuss just two of these projects: AUS DA and EGRESS. AUSDA is a program which will exam software to see if it is capable of handling the tasks you need performed. If it isn't able or isn't reliable AUSDA will inst ruct you on finding alternative software which would better suit your needs. Acc ording to AIAI, the software will try to provide solutions to problems like "ide ntifying the root causes of incidents in which the use of computer software is i nvolved, studying different software development approaches, and identifying asp ects of these which are relevant to those root causes producing guidelines for u sing and improving the development approaches studied, and providing support in the integration of these approaches, so that they can be better used for the dev elopment and maintenance of safety critical software." Sure, for the computer buffs this program is a definitely good news. But what ab out the average person who think the mouse is just the computers foot pedal? Whe re do they fit into computer technology. Well don't worry guys, because us nerds are looking out for you too! Just ask AIAI what they have for you and it turns up the EGRESS is right down your alley. This is a program which is studying huma n reactions to accidents. It is trying to make a model of how peoples reactions in panic moments save lives. Although it seems like in tough situations humans w ould fall apart and have no idea what to do, it is in fact the opposite. Quick D ecisions are usually made and are effective but not flawless. These computer mod els will help rescuers make smart decisions in time of need. AI can't be positiv e all the time but can suggest actions which we can act out and therefor lead to safe rescues. So AIAI is teaching computers to be better computers and better people. AI techn ology will never replace man but can be an extension of our body which allows us to make more rational decisions faster. And with Institutes like AIAI- we conti nue each stay to step forward into progress. No worms in these Apples by Adam Dyess Apple Computers may not have ever been considered as the state of art in Artific ial Intelligence, but a second look should be given. Not only are today's PC's b

ecoming more powerful but AI influence is showing up in them. From Macros to Voi ce Recognition technology, PC's are becoming our talking buddies. Who else would go surfing with you on short notice- even if it is the net. Who else would care to tell you that you have a business appointment scheduled at 8:35 and 28 secon ds and would notify you about it every minute till you told it to shut up. Even with all the abuse we give today's PC's they still plug away to make us happy. W e use PC's more not because they do more or are faster but because they are gett ing so much easier to use. And their ease of use comes from their use of AI. All Power Macintoshes come with Speech Recognition. That's right- you tell the c omputer to do what you want without it having to learn your voice. This implicat ion of AI in Personal computers is still very crude but it does work given the c orrect conditions to work in and a clear voice. Not to mention the requirement o f at least 16Mgs of RAM for quick use. Also Apple's Newton and other hand held n ote pads have Script recognition. Cursive or Print can be recognized by these no tepad sized devices. With the pen that accompanies your silicon note pad you can write a little note to yourself which magically changes into computer text if d esired. No more complaining about sloppy written reports if your computer can re ad your handwriting. If it can't read it though- perhaps in the future, you can correct it by dictating your letters instead. Macros provide a huge stress relief as your computer does faster what you could do more tediously. Macros are old but they are to an extent, Intelligent. You ha ve taught the computer to do something only by doing it once. In businesses, man y times applications are upgraded. But the files must be converted. All of the b usinesses records but be changed into the new software's type. Macros save the w ork of conversion of hundred of files by a human by teaching the computer to mim ic the actions of the programmer. Thus teaching the computer a task that it can repeat whenever ordered to do so. AI is all around us all but get ready for a change. But don't think the change w ill be harder on us because AI has been developed to make our lives easier. The Scope of Expert Systems As stated in the 'approaches' section, an expert system is able to do the work o f a professional. Moreover, a computer system can be trained quickly, has virtua lly no operating cost, never forgets what it learns, never calls in sick, retire s, or goes on vacation. Beyond those, intelligent computers can consider a large amount of information that may not be considered by humans. But to what extent should these systems replace human experts? Or, should they a t all? For example, some people once considered an intelligent computer as a pos sible substitute for human control over nuclear weapons, citing that a computer could respond more quickly to a threat. And many AI developers were afraid of th e possibility of programs like Eliza, the psychiatrist and the bond that humans were making with the computer. We cannot, however, over look the benefits of hav ing a computer expert. Forecasting the weather, for example, relies on many vari ables, and a computer expert can more accurately pool all of its knowledge. Stil l a computer cannot rely on the hunches of a human expert, which are sometimes n ecessary in predicting an outcome. In conclusion, in some fields such as forecasting weather or finding bugs in com puter software, expert systems are sometimes more accurate than humans. But for other fields, such as medicine, computers aiding doctors will be beneficial, but the human doctor should not be replaced. Expert systems have the power and rang e to aid to benefit, and in some cases replace humans, and computer experts, if used with discretion, will benefit human kind.

Artificial Intelligence Links AAAI: American Association for Artificial Intelligence The AAAI is a nonprofit s cientific society devoted to the promotion and advancement of AI. ACM: the Association for Computing Machinery ACM is an international scientific dedicated to advancing information technology AIAI: Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute AIAIis maintaining and impr oving its position for the application of knowledge based techniques. AT&T Bell Labs The main page for AT&T Bell Labs where new Artificial Intellegenc e is being researched and applied. Carnegie Mellon University Artificial Intelligence Repository A collection of fi les, programs and publications of interest to Artificial Intelligence research MIT: AI lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology The MIT AI research ranges from learning, vision, robotics to development of new computers. IJCAI Home Page The IJCAI is the main international gathering of researchers in AI. Neural Networks-Applications of AI Data and AI technology for businesses and edu cation Thoughts on AI Neural Networks Famous People Of AI

Some Fascinating Exhibits Outline Human Computer interaction Eliza, psychotherapist Paranoid Parry Problem Solvers SHRDLU, and the block micro-world The General problem Solver Other notable programs Hacker, program writing Sam, and comprehension Problem Solvers ELIZA Eliza, Joseph Wiezbaum's result of trying to make a program converse in English amazed people when it appeared in mid 1960's. The program was able to converse a bout any subject, because it stored subject information in data banks. Another f eature of Eliza was its ability it picked up speech patterns. notably, after cre ating one of the most famous programs Wiezbaum objected to the bonds that interv iewees were making with his creation, and denounced the intelligence of Eliza. T he following passage shows Elizas talking to a teenage girl. The teenager speaks first, and Eliza's answers are in blue. Men are all alike.

IN WHAT WAY They're always bugging us about something or other. CAN YOU THINK OF A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE Well, my boyfriend made me come here. YOUR BOYFRIEND MADE YOU COME HERE He says that I am depressed all the time. I AM SORRY TO HERE YOU ARE DEPRESSED It's true that I am unhappy DO YOU THINK COMING HERE WILL HELP YOU NOT TO BE UNHAPPY I need help, that seems certain. WHAT WOULD IT MEAN IF YOU GOT SOME HELP Perhaps I could learn to get along with my mother. TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR FAMILY My mother takes care of me. WHO ELSE IN YOUR FAMILY TAKES CARE OF YOU My father. YOUR FATHER You are like my father in some ways. WHAT RESEMBLANCE DO YOU SEE You are not very aggressive but I think you don't want me to notice that. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT I AM NOT VERY AGGRESSIVE You dont argue with me. WHY DON'T YOU THINK I ARGUE WITH YOU You are afraid of me. DOES IT PLEASE YOU TO BELIEVE I AM AFRAID OF YOU My father is afraid of everybody. WHAT ELSE COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU THINK OF YOUR FATHER Bullies. DOES THAT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT YOUR BOYFRIEND MADE YOU COME HE RE

As impressive as Eliza looks, Wiezbaum noted that it understood no more of the g irl's problems as an alarm clock understands when to go off. For example, the la st sentence gives the impression of comprehension, but in fact the program is wr itten so that at one point, it modifies the first sentence and applies it as a r esponse. Parry Why are you in the hospital? I SHOULDN'T BE HERE. Who brought you here? THE POLICE. What trouble did you have with the police? COPS DONT DO THEIR JOB. What do they do instead? COPS ARREST THE WRONG PEOPLE. They arrest the right ones sometimes. THE LAW SHOULD GET THOSE ITALIAN CROOKS. Are you Italian MY BACKGROUND IS BRITISH BUT I WAS BORN IN THIS COUNTRY. Do you know any Italian crooks? I TRY TO AVOID THE UNDERWORLD. Are you afraid of the underworld? THE MAFIA ARE THE WORST GANGSTERS. Are you connected with the Mafia? WHO KNOW, THEY KNOW ME. How do they know you? THEY SPY ON ME. Why do they? THEY WANT TO GET FALSE EVIDENCE TO FRAME ME. What do they have against you? THEY ARE OUT TO GET ME. What for? I HAVE INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE AGAINST THE MAFIA. Are you sure of all of this?

YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME? I am doing my best. --Parry remains silent---The psychiatrist does not respond-CAN'T YOU THINK OF A DECENT QUESTION TO ASK? You seem hostile to me. SOME OF YOUR REMARKS ANNOY ME. I am sorry. FORGET THE EXCUSES, YOU GUYS ARE ALL ALIKE. Problem Solving SHRDLU and block worlds 1. pick up a red block OK 2. find a block which is taller than the one you are holding and put it into the box. By "it," i assume that you mean the block which is taller than the one i am hold ing. OK. 3. what does the box contain? The blue pyramid and the blue box 4. what is the pyramid supported by? the box 5. how many blocks are not in the box? four of them 6. is at least one of them narrowed than the one which I told you to pick up? yes, the red cube 7. is it supported? yes, by the table 8. can the table hold blocks? no 9. the blue pyramid is mine I understand 10. I own all blocks which are not red, but I dont own anything that supports a pyramid I understand 11. do I own the box? no 12. do I own anything in the box? Yes, two things: the blue box and the blue pyramid 13. will you please stack up both of the red blocks and either a green cube or a

pyramid? OK 14. is there a large block behind a pyramid? yes, three of them: a large red one, a large green cube and the blue one. 15. put a small one into the green cube which supports a pyramid OK 16. put the littlest pyramid on top of it OK 17. had you touched any pyramid before you put the green one on the little cube? Yes, the green one 18. when did you pick it up? while i was stacking up the red cube, a large red block and a large green cube 19. why? to get rid of it 20. why did you do that? to clear off the red cube 21. why did you clear off that cube? to put it on a large green cube 22. why did you do that? to stack the red cube, a large block, and a large green cube 23. why did you do that? because you asked me to With SHRDLU's comprehension and logic, AI reached a new level. The name SHRDLU w as actually borrowed from MAD magazine, and is made up of, as its author Terry W ingrad explained, the seventh through twelfth frequently used letters in the Eng lish language. The General Problem Solver The first version of the GPS ran soon after the Dartmouth conference, with the a im of having computers search for their own logical solutions to problems. The G PS has successfully sovled a variety of problems including Deductive reasoning p roblems, and other such as the Hanoi Tower. The temple is made up of three wooden poles and four flat, stone disks. The obje ct is to move the tower to another pole, without laying the disks on the ground, or letting a larger disk on top of a smaller one. Some other notable programs: Hacker Hacker, developed in the MIT lab, lays to rest the common myth that a computer w ill never be able to program itself. Hacker is able to write programs for the co mputer that it is running on. The logic necessary for Hackers skill is stored in packets of information which are referred to. Also Hacker uses a programming li brary of common trouble-shooting, and is able to add tricks to its library. Sam Sam is a program from Yale's AI lab which is able to read between the lines, and assume certain facts. The Story: John went to New York by bus. On the bus he talked to an old lady. When he left

the bus, he thanked the driver. He took the subway to Leone's. On the subway his pocket was picked. He got off the train and entered Leone's. He had some lasagn a. When the check came, he discovered he couldn't pay. The management told him h e would have to wash dishes. When he left, he caught a bus to New Haven. Sam's comprehension: (Sam's answers are in blue.) Why did John go to New York? Because John wanted to go to Leone's How did John get to Leone's? John took a bus to New York and then he took the subway to Leone's. Did anything unusual happen on the bus? I don't remember anything Did anything unusual happen on the subway? A thief picked John's pocket. What did John order? John ordered lasagna. Did anything unusual happen at the restaurant? John discovered that he could not pay the check and so he had to wash dishes. Why couldn't John pay the check? Because John didn't have any money. Why didn't John have any money? Because a thief picked John's pocket. How did John get back to New Haven? John went from Leone's by subway and then he went to New Haven by bus. How was John able to take the bus to New Haven? Probably he had a ticket.

Sam's logic is represented in frames. For this story Sam might use a restaurant frame, and a subway and bus frame. These frames spell out what events in order m ost likely would occur in situations. Sam is impressive, because it can draw con clusions from the story that are not specifically stated. Also, with the last re sponse, Sam shows that he can make conjectures without information from the stor y, with the use of frames. [ HOME ] [ Basics | History | Approaches | Applications | Interactive | People | Links | Messages | Programs]

Applications of AI Q. What are the applications of AI?

A. Here are some. game playing You can buy machines that can play master level chess for a few hundred dollars. There is some AI in them, but they play well against people mainly through brut e force computation--looking at hundreds of thousands of positions. To beat a wo rld champion by brute force and known reliable heuristics requires being able to look at 200 million positions per second. speech recognition In the 1990s, computer speech recognition reached a practical level for limited purposes. Thus United Airlines has replaced its keyboard tree for flight informa tion by a system using speech recognition of flight numbers and city names. It i s quite convenient. On the the other hand, while it is possible to instruct some computers using speech, most users have gone back to the keyboard and the mouse as still more convenient. understanding natural language Just getting a sequence of words into a computer is not enough. Parsing sentence s is not enough either. The computer has to be provided with an understanding of the domain the text is about, and this is presently possible only for very limi ted domains. computer vision The world is composed of three-dimensional objects, but the inputs to the human eye and computers' TV cameras are two dimensional. Some useful programs can work solely in two dimensions, but full computer vision requires partial three-dimen sional information that is not just a set of two-dimensional views. At present t here are only limited ways of representing three-dimensional information directl y, and they are not as good as what humans evidently use. expert systems A ``knowledge engineer'' interviews experts in a certain domain and tries to emb ody their knowledge in a computer program for carrying out some task. How well t his works depends on whether the intellectual mechanisms required for the task a re within the present state of AI. When this turned out not to be so, there were many disappointing results. One of the first expert systems was MYCIN in 1974, which diagnosed bacterial infections of the blood and suggested treatments. It d id better than medical students or practicing doctors, provided its limitations were observed. Namely, its ontology included bacteria, symptoms, and treatments and did not include patients, doctors, hospitals, death, recovery, and events oc curring in time. Its interactions depended on a single patient being considered. Since the experts consulted by the knowledge engineers knew about patients, doc tors, death, recovery, etc., it is clear that the knowledge engineers forced wha t the experts told them into a predetermined framework. In the present state of AI, this has to be true. The usefulness of current expert systems depends on the ir users having common sense. heuristic classification One of the most feasible kinds of expert system given the present knowledge of A I is to put some information in one of a fixed set of categories using several s ources of information. An example is advising whether to accept a proposed credi t card purchase. Information is available about the owner of the credit card, hi s record of payment and also about the item he is buying and about the establish ment from which he is buying it (e.g., about whether there have been previous cr edit card frauds at this establishment).

Branches of AI Q. What are the branches of AI? A. Here's a list, but some branches are surely missing, because no-one has ident ified them yet. Some of these may be regarded as concepts or topics rather than full branches. logical AI What a program knows about the world in general the facts of the specific situat ion in which it must act, and its goals are all represented by sentences of some mathematical logical language. The program decides what to do by inferring that certain actions are appropriate for achieving its goals. The first article prop osing this was [McC59]. [McC89] is a more recent summary. [McC96b] lists some of the concepts involved in logical aI. [Sha97] is an important text. search AI programs often examine large numbers of possibilities, e.g. moves in a chess game or inferences by a theorem proving program. Discoveries are continually mad e about how to do this more efficiently in various domains. pattern recognition When a program makes observations of some kind, it is often programmed to compar e what it sees with a pattern. For example, a vision program may try to match a pattern of eyes and a nose in a scene in order to find a face. More complex patt erns, e.g. in a natural language text, in a chess position, or in the history of some event are also studied. These more complex patterns require quite differen t methods than do the simple patterns that have been studied the most. representation Facts about the world have to be represented in some way. Usually languages of m athematical logic are used. inference From some facts, others can be inferred. Mathematical logical deduction is adequ ate for some purposes, but new methods of non-monotonic inference have been adde d to logic since the 1970s. The simplest kind of non-monotonic reasoning is defa ult reasoning in which a conclusion is to be inferred by default, but the conclu sion can be withdrawn if there is evidence to the contrary. For example, when we hear of a bird, we man infer that it can fly, but this conclusion can be revers ed when we hear that it is a penguin. It is the possibility that a conclusion ma y have to be withdrawn that constitutes the non-monotonic character of the reaso ning. Ordinary logical reasoning is monotonic in that the set of conclusions tha t can the drawn from a set of premises is a monotonic increasing function of the premises. Circumscription is another form of non-monotonic reasoning. common sense knowledge and reasoning This is the area in which AI is farthest from human-level, in spite of the fact that it has been an active research area since the 1950s. While there has been c onsiderable progress, e.g. in developing systems of non-monotonic reasoning and theories of action, yet more new ideas are needed. The Cyc system contains a lar ge but spotty collection of common sense facts. learning from experience Programs do that. The approaches to AI based on connectionism and neural nets sp ecialize in that. There is also learning of laws expressed in logic. [Mit97] is a comprehensive undergraduate text on machine learning. Programs can only learn what facts or behaviors their formalisms can represent, and unfortunately learni

ng systems are almost all based on very limited abilities to represent informati on. planning Planning programs start with general facts about the world (especially facts abo ut the effects of actions), facts about the particular situation and a statement of a goal. From these, they generate a strategy for achieving the goal. In the most common cases, the strategy is just a sequence of actions. epistemology This is a study of the kinds of knowledge that are required for solving problems in the world. ontology Ontology is the study of the kinds of things that exist. In AI, the programs and sentences deal with various kinds of objects, and we study what these kinds are and what their basic properties are. Emphasis on ontology begins in the 1990s. heuristics A heuristic is a way of trying to discover something or an idea imbedded in a pr ogram. The term is used variously in AI. Heuristic functions are used in some ap proaches to search to measure how far a node in a search tree seems to be from a goal. Heuristic predicates that compare two nodes in a search tree to see if on e is better than the other, i.e. constitutes an advance toward the goal, may be more useful. [My opinion]. genetic programming Genetic programming is a technique for getting programs to solve a task by matin g random Lisp programs and selecting fittest in millions of generations. It is b eing developed by John Koza's group and here's a tutorial.

vQ. What is artificial intelligence? A. It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using comput ers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable. Q. Yes, but what is intelligence? A. Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world. Varying kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals and some machines. Q. Isn't there a solid definition of intelligence that doesn't depend on relatin g it to human intelligence? A. Not yet. The problem is that we cannot yet characterize in general what kinds of computational procedures we want to call intelligent. We understand some of the mechanisms of intelligence and not others. Q. Is intelligence a single thing so that one can ask a yes or no question ``Is this machine intelligent or not?''?

A. No. Intelligence involves mechanisms, and AI research has discovered how to m ake computers carry out some of them and not others. If doing a task requires on ly mechanisms that are well understood today, computer programs can give very im pressive performances on these tasks. Such programs should be considered ``somew hat intelligent''. Q. Isn't AI about simulating human intelligence? A. Sometimes but not always or even usually. On the one hand, we can learn somet hing about how to make machines solve problems by observing other people or just by observing our own methods. On the other hand, most work in AI involves study ing the problems the world presents to intelligence rather than studying people or animals. AI researchers are free to use methods that are not observed in peop le or that involve much more computing than people can do. Q. What about IQ? Do computer programs have IQs? A. No. IQ is based on the rates at which intelligence develops in children. It i s the ratio of the age at which a child normally makes a certain score to the ch ild's age. The scale is extended to adults in a suitable way. IQ correlates well with various measures of success or failure in life, but making computers that can score high on IQ tests would be weakly correlated with their usefulness. For example, the ability of a child to repeat back a long sequence of digits correl ates well with other intellectual abilities, perhaps because it measures how muc h information the child can compute with at once. However, ``digit span'' is tri vial for even extremely limited computers. However, some of the problems on IQ tests are useful challenges for AI. Q. What about other comparisons between human and computer intelligence? Arthur R. Jensen [Jen98], a leading researcher in human intelligence, suggests ` `as a heuristic hypothesis'' that all normal humans have the same intellectual m echanisms and that differences in intelligence are related to ``quantitative bio chemical and physiological conditions''. I see them as speed, short term memory, and the ability to form accurate and retrievable long term memories. Whether or not Jensen is right about human intelligence, the situation in AI tod ay is the reverse. Computer programs have plenty of speed and memory but their abilities correspond to the intellectual mechanisms that program designers understand well enough to put in programs. Some abilities that children normally don't develop till they are teenagers may be in, and some abilities possessed by two year olds are still out. The matter is further complicated by the fact that the cognitive sciences still have not succeeded in determining exactly what the human abilities are. Ve ry likely the organization of the intellectual mechanisms for AI can usefully be different from that in people. Whenever people do better than computers on some task or computers use a lot of computation to do as well as people, this demonstrates that the program designer s lack understanding of the intellectual mechanisms required to do the task effi ciently. Q. When did AI research start? A. After WWII, a number of people independently started to work on intelligent m achines. The English mathematician Alan Turing may have been the first. He gave a lecture on it in 1947. He also may have been the first to decide that AI was b est researched by programming computers rather than by building machines. By the

late 1950s, there were many researchers on AI, and most of them were basing the ir work on programming computers. Q. Does AI aim to put the human mind into the computer? A. Some researchers say they have that objective, but maybe they are using the p hrase metaphorically. The human mind has a lot of peculiarities, and I'm not sur e anyone is serious about imitating all of them. Q. What is the Turing test? A. Alan Turing's 1950 article Computing Machinery and Intelligence [Tur50] discu ssed conditions for considering a machine to be intelligent. He argued that if t he machine could successfully pretend to be human to a knowledgeable observer th en you certainly should consider it intelligent. This test would satisfy most pe ople but not all philosophers. The observer could interact with the machine and a human by teletype (to avoid requiring that the machine imitate the appearance or voice of the person), and the human would try to persuade the observer that i t was human and the machine would try to fool the observer. The Turing test is a one-sided test. A machine that passes the test should certa inly be considered intelligent, but a machine could still be considered intellig ent without knowing enough about humans to imitate a human. Daniel Dennett's book Brainchildren [Den98] has an excellent discussion of the T uring test and the various partial Turing tests that have been implemented, i.e. with restrictions on the observer's knowledge of AI and the subject matter of q uestioning. It turns out that some people are easily led into believing that a r ather dumb program is intelligent. Q. Does AI aim at human-level intelligence? A. Yes. The ultimate effort is to make computer programs that can solve problems and achieve goals in the world as well as humans. However, many people involved in particular research areas are much less ambitious. Q. How far is AI from reaching human-level intelligence? When will it happen? A. A few people think that human-level intelligence can be achieved by writing l arge numbers of programs of the kind people are now writing and assembling vast knowledge bases of facts in the languages now used for expressing knowledge. However, most AI researchers believe that new fundamental ideas are required, an d therefore it cannot be predicted when human-level intelligence will be achieve d. Q. Are computers the right kind of machine to be made intelligent? A. Computers can be programmed to simulate any kind of machine. Many researchers invented non-computer machines, hoping that they would be intel ligent in different ways than the computer programs could be. However, they usua lly simulate their invented machines on a computer and come to doubt that the ne w machine is worth building. Because many billions of dollars that have been spe nt in making computers faster and faster, another kind of machine would have to be very fast to perform better than a program on a computer simulating the machi ne. Q. Are computers fast enough to be intelligent?

A. Some people think much faster computers are required as well as new ideas. My own opinion is that the computers of 30 years ago were fast enough if only we k new how to program them. Of course, quite apart from the ambitions of AI researc hers, computers will keep getting faster. Q. What about parallel machines? A. Machines with many processors are much faster than single processors can be. Parallelism itself presents no advantages, and parallel machines are somewhat aw kward to program. When extreme speed is required, it is necessary to face this a wkwardness. Q. What about making a ``child machine'' that could improve by reading and by le arning from experience? A. This idea has been proposed many times, starting in the 1940s. Eventually, it will be made to work. However, AI programs haven't yet reached the level of bei ng able to learn much of what a child learns from physical experience. Nor do pr esent programs understand language well enough to learn much by reading. Q. Might an AI system be able to bootstrap itself to higher and higher level int elligence by thinking about AI? A. I think yes, but we aren't yet at a level of AI at which this process can beg in. Q. What about chess? A. Alexander Kronrod, a Russian AI researcher, said ``Chess is the Drosophila of AI.'' He was making an analogy with geneticists' use of that fruit fly to study inheritance. Playing chess requires certain intellectual mechanisms and not oth ers. Chess programs now play at grandmaster level, but they do it with limited i ntellectual mechanisms compared to those used by a human chess player, substitut ing large amounts of computation for understanding. Once we understand these mec hanisms better, we can build human-level chess programs that do far less computa tion than do present programs. Unfortunately, the competitive and commercial aspects of making computers play c hess have taken precedence over using chess as a scientific domain. It is as if the geneticists after 1910 had organized fruit fly races and concentrated their efforts on breeding fruit flies that could win these races. Q. What about Go? A. The Chinese and Japanese game of Go is also a board game in which the players take turns moving. Go exposes the weakness of our present understanding of the intellectual mechanisms involved in human game playing. Go programs are very bad players, in spite of considerable effort (not as much as for chess). The proble m seems to be that a position in Go has to be divided mentally into a collection of subpositions which are first analyzed separately followed by an analysis of their interaction. Humans use this in chess also, but chess programs consider th e position as a whole. Chess programs compensate for the lack of this intellectu al mechanism by doing thousands or, in the case of Deep Blue, many millions of t imes as much computation. Sooner or later, AI research will overcome this scandalous weakness. Q. Don't some people say that AI is a bad idea? A. The philosopher John Searle says that the idea of a non-biological machine be

ing intelligent is incoherent. He proposes the Chinese room argument www-formal. stanford.edu/jmc/chinese.html The philosopher Hubert Dreyfus says that AI is imp ossible. The computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum says the idea is obscene, anti -human and immoral. Various people have said that since artificial intelligence hasn't reached human level by now, it must be impossible. Still other people are disappointed that companies they invested in went bankrupt. Q. Aren't computability theory and computational complexity the keys to AI? [Not e to the layman and beginners in computer science: These are quite technical bra nches of mathematical logic and computer science, and the answer to the question has to be somewhat technical.] A. No. These theories are relevant but don't address the fundamental problems of AI. In the 1930s mathematical logicians, especially Kurt Gdel and Alan Turing, establ ished that there did not exist algorithms that were guaranteed to solve all prob lems in certain important mathematical domains. Whether a sentence of first orde r logic is a theorem is one example, and whether a polynomial equations in sever al variables has integer solutions is another. Humans solve problems in these do mains all the time, and this has been offered as an argument (usually with some decorations) that computers are intrinsically incapable of doing what people do. Roger Penrose claims this. However, people can't guarantee to solve arbitrary p roblems in these domains either. See my Review of The Emperor's New Mind by Roge r Penrose. More essays and reviews defending AI research are in [McC96a]. In the 1960s computer scientists, especially Steve Cook and Richard Karp develop ed the theory of NP-complete problem domains. Problems in these domains are solv able, but seem to take time exponential in the size of the problem. Which senten ces of propositional calculus are satisfiable is a basic example of an NP-comple te problem domain. Humans often solve problems in NP-complete domains in times m uch shorter than is guaranteed by the general algorithms, but can't solve them q uickly in general. What is important for AI is to have algorithms as capable as people at solving p roblems. The identification of subdomains for which good algorithms exist is imp ortant, but a lot of AI problem solvers are not associated with readily identifi ed subdomains. The theory of the difficulty of general classes of problems is called computatio nal complexity. So far this theory hasn't interacted with AI as much as might ha ve been hoped. Success in problem solving by humans and by AI programs seems to rely on properties of problems and problem solving methods that the neither the complexity researchers nor the AI community have been able to identify precisely . Algorithmic complexity theory as developed by Solomonoff, Kolmogorov and Chaitin (independently of one another) is also relevant. It defines the complexity of a symbolic object as the length of the shortest program that will generate it. Pr oving that a candidate program is the shortest or close to the shortest is an un solvable problem, but representing objects by short programs that generate them should sometimes be illuminating even when you can't prove that the program is t he shortest.

More questions Q. How is AI research done? A. AI research has both theoretical and experimental sides. The experimental sid e has both basic and applied aspects. There are two main lines of research. One is biological, based on the idea that since humans are intelligent, AI should study humans and imitate their psycholog y or physiology. The other is phenomenal, based on studying and formalizing comm on sense facts about the world and the problems that the world presents to the a chievement of goals. The two approaches interact to some extent, and both should eventually succeed. It is a race, but both racers seem to be walking. Q. What are the relations between AI and philosophy? A. AI has many relations with philosophy, especially modern analytic philosophy. Both study mind, and both study common sense. The best reference is [Tho03]. Q. How are AI and logic programming related? A. At the very least, logic programming provides useful programming languages (m ainly Prolog). Beyond that, sometimes a theory useful in AI can be expressed as a collection of Horn clauses, and goal to be achieved can be expressed as that of finding value s of variables satisfying an expression . The problem can sometimes be solved by running the Prolog program consisting of and . There are two possible obstacles to regarding AI as logic programming. First, Ho rn theories do not exhaust first order logic. Second, the Prolog program express ing the theory may be extremely inefficient. More elaborate control than just ex ecuting the program that expresses the theory is often needed. Map coloring prov ides examples. Q. What should I study before or while learning AI? A. Study mathematics, especially mathematical logic. The more you learn about sc iences, e.g. physics or biology, the better. For the biological approaches to AI , study psychology and the physiology of the nervous system. Learn some programm ing languages--at least C, Lisp and Prolog. It is also a good idea to learn one basic machine language. Jobs are likely to depend on knowing the languages curre ntly in fashion. In the late 1990s, these include C++ and Java. Q. What is a good textbook on AI? A. Artificial Intelligence by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, Prentice Hall is the most commonly used textbbook in 1997. The general views expressed there do n ot exactly correspond to those of this essay. Artificial Intelligence: A New Syn thesis by Nils Nilsson, Morgan Kaufman, may be easier to read. Some people prefe r Computational Intelligence by David Poole, Alan Mackworth and Randy Goebel, Ox ford, 1998. Q. What organizations and publications are concerned with AI?

A. The American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the European Coo rdinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence (ECCAI) and the Society for Arti ficial Intelligence and Simulation of Behavior (AISB) are scientific societies c oncerned with AI research. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has a s pecial interest group on artificial intelligence SIGART. The International Joint Conference on AI (IJCAI) is the main international confe rence. The AAAI runs a US National Conference on AI. Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, and Journal of Artificial Inte lligence Research, and IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelli gence are four of the main journals publishing AI research papers. I have not ye t found everything that should be in this paragraph. Page of Positive Reviews lists papers that experts have found important.

This page is currently U N D E R C O N S T R U C T I O N Welcome to the Fun Side! A hands-on approach to applications using AI technology Programs Via the Web: The Milk Mistic Online Pysychitrist Eliza Mist SynTactic AnalysisAn example of language recognition from MIT's AI lab. Online Tic-Tac-Toe Downloadable programs and source code: UCPOP: a planner similar to the POP planner in the text. Common Lisp plus CLIM. Otter: a theorem prover. C. DTP: a theorem prover. Common Lisp. Epilog: theorem prover and logical language toolkit. Binary for Mac, HP. CLIPS: a Tool for Building Expert Systems. C. Belief net software: a listing of both free and commercial belief net software. CLASP: package for visualizing and analyzing statistics. Common Lisp. Irvine Machine Learning programs. MLC++: a machine learning library. C++. List of public domain software maintained by Matt Ginsberg. Common Lisp, Prolog. CMU AI Repository of software packages. [ HOME ] [ Basics | History | Approaches | Applications | Future | People | Links | Messa ges | Programs ] About This Site > Library > FAQ > 7,000+ sites by kids for kids

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