HIT3002

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence
1: Introduction

Section Overview
In this section we will cover,

What is artificial intelligence (AI)?

Typical AI problems and techniques used

Intelligent agents

Contributions of AI and where are we today?

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Before we look at the definition of AI, let us first ponder at another

question: What is Intelligence?
The ability to understand?
Learn fast?
Has a vast amount of experience?

How about Artificial?

Of course, it is not about human!
It is about machine/computer

SIRI (iPhone 4S/5) ( an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator, give recommendation and perform actions)
Direct product of SRI Internationals Artificial Intelligence Centre
Raised US$24million through venture capitalists before got acquired by Apple

So what is Artificial Intelligence?

AI is the study of the computations that make it possible to

perceive, reason and act.
Field that studies the synthesis and analysis of computation
agents that act intelligently.
Goals .
Engineering goal is to solve real-world problems
Scientific goal is to explain various sorts of intelligence

The main focus in AI is to make computers more intelligent!

What is intelligence

Faculty of understanding
Capacity to know or apprehend

Available ability as measured by intelligence tests or social criteria

Ability to use knowledge in new situations or problems

Ability to learn

Ability to plan, to foresee problems

Ability to use symbols and relationships

Ability to think abstractly, to work towards goals

Ability to act/perform certain functions

you name it

What is Artificial Intelligence

Different definitions due to different criteria

Two dimensions:
Thought processes/reasoning vs. behaviour/action
Success according to human standards vs. success
according to an ideal concept of intelligence: rationality.

System that act like humans

AI is the art of creating machines that perform functions that

require intelligence when performed by humans
Methodology: Take an intellectual task at which people are
better and make a computer do it
Turing test

Turing test

Systems that think like humans

How do humans think?

Requires scientific theories of internal brain activities (cognitive model):
Level of abstraction? (knowledge or circuitry?)
Validation?
Predicting and testing human behavior
Identification from neurological data

Systems that act rationally

Rational behavior: doing the right thing

The Right thing is the course of action that is expected to

maximize goal achievement given the available information.

Can include thinking, yet in service of rational action.

Action without thinking: e.g. reflexes.

Human Intelligence come from.....

Biology
Culture
Life

long Learning

These sources interact in complex way

Agent Situated Environment

Ability
Goals

AGENT

Prior Knowledge

Observation
Past Experiences

Environment

Why Artificial Intilligence

Its not just a good topic for science fiction

There are success stories of using AI:

Expert systems: makes 100s of millions of dollars per year (for

the mining and banking industries)
AI techniques in search engines (specifically targeted by Google)

AI techniques in automotive industry: BMWs iDrive, Holdens AI estabilization system

Fuzzy-logic controllers can be found in washing machines, dish washers, camera
autofocus, air conditioners, car automatic transmissions, etc.
fields of accounting, the law, medicine, process control, financial service,
production, human resources, among others

Why study AI

It provides the core knowledge of computer science

Youll learn to analyse problems and learn about techniques/algorithms
to solve real-world problems
It paves the way to understanding various sorts of intelligence (in both
humans and machines)
It is also fun (and different to most other subjects)

History of Artificial Intelligence

Started formally back in 1958 (as we know it today)

Early success (first 25 years)

Game playing
Theorem proving
Common-sense reasoning
College level mathematics

Went through a boom in 1980s (business driven), but could not

sustain
Slow and steady progress in the last 20 years

Phases of AI Research

1st phase
Problem solving systems
Simple reasoning and search techniques
2nd phase
Rule-based expert systems
Knowledge representation, engineering and advanced reasoning
techniques
Basic robotics (factories)
3rd phase
Machine vision, speech, NLP, language translation, common-sense reasoning
Advanced robots (semi-autonomous planet exploration)
Recent focus has been on
Neural networks, genetic algorithms, agents

Section Overview
In this section we will cover,

What is artificial intelligence (AI)?

Typical AI problems and techniques used

Intelligent agents

Contributions of AI and where are we today?

Typical AI Problems

Planning
Goal directed planning (Chess)

Vision
What am I seeing now? (Handwriting, Fingerprint recognition)

Robotics
Intelligent guidance of motors based on sensors (R2D2, Washing

Machine)

Typical AI Problems

Expert Systems
Emulate a domain expert (Medical diagnosis, Troubleshooting in

Windows Help)

Natural Language
Understand common languages and communicate in it (HAL-9000,

Windows XP Help Sub-System, Windows Vista)

Neural Networks
Best suited for pattern recognition and learning systems

Core AI Techniques

Symbol Processing
Intelligent behaviour can be achieved by symbol manipulation
Knowledge from a domain is represented using a language
An algorithm can process these symbols to achieve a defined goal
Most techniques are goal directed
Can be applied to reasoning, planning, learning and pattern recognition problems
Reasoning System
Forward-chaining (deduce new information from a set of input data)
Backward-chaining (reach a conclusion from a specific goal state)
Planning System (searching)
Brute-force
Heuristic
Knowledge representation
Semantic networks and Frames

Section Roadmap Where Are We?

In this section we will cover,

What is artificial intelligence (AI)?

Typical AI problems and techniques used

Intelligent agents

Contributions of AI and where are we today?

Intelligent Agents

Intelligent Agents are independent software entities that have:

Autonomy
Intelligence
Mobility (Optional)

Agents are trigger or event driven

Events trigger some processing

The outcome of the processing is generally some action

(or nothing)

Types of Agents

Reactive agents
React to events from their environment

Deliberative agents
Use (complex) AI techniques to achieve goals

Collaborative agents
Work in groups to solve a larger problem

BDI agents
Have Beliefs, Desires and Intentions, this means that they have a

complex mental state with solid reasoning abilities

Agents by Functionality

Interface agents
Simulate a personal assistant

Information agents
Idea is to filter large data and prevent information overload

Domain experts agents

Make use of expert systems as well as other agents to help user with

tasks (shopping agents, find a good game and so on..)

Often have ability to learn users preferences

Agents vs. Distributed Objects

Agents are NOT just distributed objects (As in DCOM objects or

Distributed Java Objects)
Objects do not perform actions on their own the entire possible
path set has been fully wired and defined during construction
Agents are driven by goals, they change roles as required and
adapt to achieve the goal
Agents can collaborate and work with other agents of their own
volition (if required)
Objects are not smart (focus is on a small function)

Turing Test
Proposed in 1950 by Alan Turing
A simple test of the maturity of AI

will conclude if a computer was intelligent (or not)

Test involves
Humans communicating with a remote entity
The remote entity can be either human or a computer
If the computer can fool the human, then it passes the Turing Test!

Loebner Prize contest (Annual)

ALICE and Jabberwacky are recent winners

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

Section Roadmap Where Are We?

In this section we will cover,

What is artificial intelligence (AI)?

Typical AI problems and techniques used

Intelligent agents

Philosophical issues

Contributions of AI and where are we today?

Contributions from AI Research

WIMP (Windows, Icon, Mouse, Pointer)
Object-Oriented Software Engineering
Search techniques (TSP, Schedules, Optimisation)
Data organisation and representation techniques (esp. very
large data sets)

Data modelling, data mining...

Distributed Processing techniques

Intelligent video games (game AI)
Realistic simulations
Military (smart weapons ...)

AI Today

Highly useful in limited domains

Slow but steady progress has been made in many fields

Expert systems
Recognition (Voice, Speech, Handwriting)
Adaptive systems
Searching
Scheduling

Best results have been obtained by focusing on a small realworld problem

Will Computers ever be smart?

Yes, compared to computers of a prior generation

HAL-9000 like systems are possible in time

Human like robots debate rages on

Current trend seems to indicate that they may never exist outside of

movies, sci-fi stories

An achievable goal for AI is to develop incrementally smarter

software that can show quantitative and qualitative benefits

References

Russell, S.J., Norvig, P., "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach", 2nd

edition, Prentice-Hall, 2002

A. Cawsey. The Essence of Artificial Intelligence. Prentice hall, 1998

J. P. Bigus. Constructing Intelligent Agents, Wiley 2001

Winston, Artificial Intelligence, 3rd Ed. Addison Wesley, 1992