Mrs.

Hédia Toumi
3ndyear Computer Sciences
studentsA.Y.2021-2022
1stsemester
Mrs.H.Toumi

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Learning objectives
• to understand what exactly is meant by the term artificial intelligence (AI)
• asking and answering questions about the
current situation in AI systems and the
possibilities for future development

Keywords
• confine - to define boundaries; to limit the extent (of an activity)
• computational - adj.1. involving computers, 2. that can be computed
• correlate - to have a close similarity, connection or causal relationship with
• heuristic hypothesis - a hypothesis that has a very
high probability of being true on the basis of
reasoning and past experience
• cognitive science - the scientific study of mind or
intelligence based on relevant fields, including
psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics,
anthropology, computer science, and biology
• incoherent - confused and inconsistent; illogical
• computational complexity - an area of computer
design dealing with the problems of algorithms and
their ability to solve a given problem

Pre-reading questions
1. How would you define “intelligence”?
2. Have you ever thought of computer programs as being “intelligent”?

2021-2022 Hedia Toumi 3LIG

 3. Do you think that computers or machines will ever be as intelligent as humans?
4. Are you afraid of the nightmare scenario in which
machines have control over people, possibly
leading to the annihilation of the human race?

5. Summary
6. This text, in the form of an interview, is written by Prof. John McCarthy of
Stanford University, who is an authority in the field of AI and was the
first to use this term. It covers the main ideas of AI and its differences
from human intelligence as well as describing AI in the context of biology,
psychology and even philosophy. In the interview Professor McCarthy
answers basic questions about artificial intelligence.
7. Q. What is artificial intelligence?
8.
9. A. It is the science and engineering of making
intelligent machines, especially intelligent
computer programs. It is related to the similar task
of using computers to understand human
intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself
to methods that are biologically observable.

10.Q. Yes, but what is intelligence?

11.
12. 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.

13.Q. Isn’t there a solid definition of intelligence

that doesn’t depend on relating it to human
intelligence?

14. 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.

15.Q. Is intelligence a single thing so that one can

ask a yes or no question Is this machine
intelligent or not?

16. A. No. Intelligence involves mechanisms, and AI

2021-2022 Hedia Toumi 3LIG

 research has discovered how to make computers
carry out some of them and not others. If doing a
task requires only mechanisms that are well
understood today, computer programs can give
very impressive performances on these tasks. Such
programs should be considered some- what
intelligent.

17.Q. Isn’t AI about simulating human intelligence?

18.
19. A. Sometimes but not always or even usually. On the
one hand, we can learn something 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 studying 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 people
or that involve much more computing than people
can do.

2021-2022 Hedia Toumi 3LIG