Longer Reading SFL – ENGLISH PREPARATORY PROGRAM

A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence: On the Past, Present, and Future of Artificial Intelligence
Michael Haenlein and Andreas Kaplan

BEFORE YOU READ

Task 1. Vocabulary
New words have been bolded in the text. Study the context provided in the text and without using a
dictionary match the new words with the appropriate definition/synonym in the next column.

NEW VOCABULARY DEFINITION/SYNONYM

1. depend on a) large in amount
2. interpret b) to subject to treatment
3. cognitive c) a disagreement or argument
4. distinguish d) to imitate
5. predict e) to be determined/affected by
6. conflict f) to tell the difference between
7. inspire g) to know who someone is
8. found h) to explain the meaning of
9. simulate i) to say something will happen
10. process j) involving conscious intellectual activity
11. substantial k) to start or establish
12. construct l) to encourage, give a feeling of eagerness
13. recognize m) to build

Task 2. Scanning
Scan the text and match the names in the first column with suitable explanations from columns 2
and 3.
NAME IDENTITY ACHIVEMENT/SIGNIFICANCE
Arthur C. Clarke 1. American computer scientists a) the Bombe, first electro-mechanical
computer
Isaac Asimov 2. British sci-fi writer b) DSRPAI project (first use of the term AI)
Alan Turing 3. Canadian psychologist c) ELIZA (a language processing tool
simulating a conversation with a human)
Marvin Minsky 4. a scientist at MIT d) AI effect
John McCarthy
Joseph Weizenbaum 5. British mathematician e) a theory of learning copying the process
of neurons in brain
James Lighthill 6. British mathematician f) three laws of robotics
Donald Hebb 7. American sci-fi writer g) report questioning future of AI
A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence: On the Past, Present, and Future of Artificial Intelligence
Michael Haenlein and Andreas Kaplan
The world we are living in today feels, in many ways, like a Wonderland similar to the one that Lewis
Carroll, described in his famous novels. Image recognition, smart speakers, and self-driving cars—all of
this is possible due to advances in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is defined as “a system’s
ability to interpret external data correctly, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve
specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation.” Established as an academic discipline in the 1950s,
AI remained an area of limited practical interest for over half a century. Today, due to the rise of Big Data
and improvements in computing power, it has entered the business environment and public conversation.
AI can be classified into analytical, human-inspired, and humanized AI depending on the types of
intelligence it has (cognitive, emotional, and social intelligence. What all of these types have in common,
however, is that when AI reaches common usage it is frequently no longer considered as such. This is
described as the AI effect. As the British science fiction writer Arthur Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Yet when one understands the technology, the
magic disappears.
In regular intervals since the 1950s, experts predicted that it will only take a few years until we reach
Artificial General Intelligence—systems that show behavior indistinguishable from humans in all aspects
and that have cognitive, emotional, and social intelligence. Only time will tell whether this will indeed be
the case. But to get a better idea of AI we need to look into the past of AI to see how far this area has
evolved.
The Past: Four Seasons of AI
AI Spring: The Birth of AI
The roots of AI probably go back to the 1940s, specifically 1942, when the American Science Fiction
writer Isaac Asimov published his short story Runaround. The story is about the Three Laws of Robotics:
(1) a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; (2)
a robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with
the First Law; and (3) a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict
with the First or Second Laws. Asimov’s work inspired generations of scientists in the field of robotics,
AI, and computer science. At about the same time, the English mathematician Alan Turing developed a
code breaking machine called The Bombe for the British government, with the purpose of breaking the
Enigma code used by the German army in the Second World War. The Bombe, which had a weight of
about a ton, is generally considered the first working electro-mechanical computer. The powerful way in
which The Bombe was able to break the Enigma code, a task previously impossible to even the best
human mathematicians, made Turing think about the intelligence of such machines. In 1950, he published
his most important article “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” where he described how to create
intelligent machines and in particular how to test their intelligence. This Turing Test is still used today to
identify intelligence of an artificial system: if a human is interacting with another human and a machine
and unable to distinguish the machine from the human, then the machine is said to be intelligent.
The word Artificial Intelligence was officially used for the first time about six years later, when in
1956 Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy (a computer scientist at Stanford) organized the eight-week-
long Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence (DSRPAI) at Dartmouth College in
New Hampshire. This workshop—which marks the beginning of the AI Spring—brought together those
who would later be the founding fathers of AI. The objective of DSRPAI was to reunite researchers from
various fields in order to create a new research area aimed at building machines able to simulate human
intelligence.
AI Summer and Winter: The Ups and Downs of AI
The Dartmouth Conference was followed by a period of nearly two decades that saw significant
success in the field of AI. An early example is the famous ELIZA computer program, created between
1964 and 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT. ELIZA was a natural language processing tool able to
simulate a conversation with a human and one of the first programs capable of attempting to pass the
Turing Test. Another success story of the early days of AI was the General Problem Solver program that
was able to automatically solve certain kind of simple problems. As a result of these inspiring success
stories, substantial funding was given to AI research, leading to more and more projects. In 1970,
Marvin Minsky gave an interview to Life Magazine in which he stated that a machine with the general
intelligence of an average human being could be developed within three to eight years.
Yet, unfortunately, this was not the case. Only three years later, in 1973, the U.S. Congress started to
strongly criticize the high spending on AI research. In the same year, the British mathematician James
Lighthill published a report in which he questioned the optimistic view given by AI researchers. Lighthill
stated that machines would only ever reach the level of an “experienced amateur” in games such as chess
and that common-sense reasoning would always be beyond their abilities. In response, the British
government ended support for AI research in all except three universities (Edinburgh, Sussex, and Essex)
and the U.S. government soon followed the British example. This period started the AI Winter and no
further advances were made in the following years.
AI Fall: The Harvest
One reason for the initial lack of progress in the field of AI lies in the specific way in which early
systems such as ELIZA and the General Problem Solver tried to copy human intelligence. Specifically,
they were all Expert Systems, that is, collections of rules which assume that human intelligence can be
formalized and reconstructed as a series of “if-then” statements. Expert Systems can perform
impressively well in areas where such formalization exists. For example, IBM’s Deep Blue chess playing
program, which in 1997 was able to beat the world champion Gary Kasparov—is such an Expert System.
Deep Blue was able to process 200 million possible moves per second and to determine the optimal next
move looking 20 moves ahead through the use of a method called tree search.
However, Expert Systems perform poorly in areas that are not appropriate for such formalization. For
example, an Expert System cannot be easily trained to recognize faces or even to distinguish between a
picture showing a cake and one showing a Chihuahua. For such tasks it is necessary that a system is able
to interpret external data correctly, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific
goals and tasks through flexible adaptation—characteristics that define AI. Since Expert Systems do not
possess these characteristics, they are technically not true AI. Statistical methods for achieving true AI
have been discussed as early as the 1940s when the Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb developed a
theory of learning known as Hebbian Learning that copies the process of neurons in the human brain.
This led to the creation of research on Artificial Neural Networks. Yet, this work came to a stop in 1969
when Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert showed that computers did not have sufficient processing
power to handle the work required by such artificial neural networks.
Artificial neural networks made a comeback in the form of Deep Learning when in 2015 AlphaGo, a
program developed by Google, was able to beat the world champion in the board game Go. Go is
substantially more complex than chess (e.g., at opening there are 20 possible moves in chess but 361 in
Go) and it was long believed that computers would never be able to beat humans in this game. AlphaGo
achieved its high performance by using a specific type of artificial neural network called Deep Learning.
Today artificial neural networks and Deep Learning form the basis of most applications we know under
the label of AI. They are the basis of image recognition algorithms used by Facebook, speech recognition
algorithms that fuel smart speakers and self-driving cars. This harvest of the fruits of past statistical
advances is the period of AI Fall, which we find ourselves in today.

AFTER YOU READ

Task 3. Answer the following questions based on the text.
1) According to the definition given in the text, AI is not related with a system’s ability to …
a) adapt itself flexibly to specific problems
b) learn from external data
c) process external data
d) to solve practical and academic problems

2) Isaac Asimov’s works on robotics and AI ….

a) focused on the legal aspect of the issue.
b) became an inspiration for many scientists.
c) helped Alan Turing develop the Bombe.
d) were about the consequences of the Three Laws of Robotics.

3) Systems with Artificial General Intelligence …..

a) show behavior identical to human behavior.
b) will be possible in a few years.
c) is indistinguishable from magic.
d) have limited practical interest except academics.

4) Which one of the following is NOT CORRECT about The Bombe?

a) It was developed for the British government by Alan Turing.
b) It is considered as the first prototype of a working computer.
c) It is still a benchmark to identify intelligence of a system.
d) It was able to break the code used by the German army.
5) Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence (DSRPAI) is significant because …
a) it brought prominent AI scientists as well as those from other fields together.
b) it marked the beginning of AI winter where funding decreased significantly.
c) it was the first time machines simulating human intelligence were showcased.
d) the idea of intelligent robots was first raised at this workshop.

6) Which one of the following statements is correct about James Lighthill’s report on AI?
a) Following the report politicians in the U.S. Congress voted to stop funding AI research.
b) The report stated that machines could attain expert level intelligence.
c) The report claimed that AI could only have a very limited practical use.
d) Following the report AI research started gaining momentum and success.

7) Which one of the following statements is not correct about expert systems?
a) They are based on formalizing human thinking as “if-then” statements.
b) They can be used for a variety of purposes including face recognition.
c) They are not exactly applications of Artificial Intelligence.
d) They can process numerous alternatives and choose the best one among them.

8) Which one of the following statements is not correct about IBM’s Deep Blue?
a) It was able to beat the world champion Kasparov in chess.
b) It can think 20 moves ahead and play its next move accordingly.
c) It can recognize the face of its opponent and adapt its game.
d) It is an example showing how smart AI can get.

Task 4. Vocabulary
Fill in the chart below with the correct form of the words given.
VERB NOUN ADJECTIVE ADVERB
interpret a) ---------------------
b)
depend (on) a) a)
b) b)
--------------- cognitive ------------------
distinguish ------------------ a) ------------------
b)
predict a)
b)
conflict ------------------
inspire
found a) ------------------
b)
 simulate a) ------------------
b)
process ------------------
---------------- ------------------- substantial
(re)construct ------------------
recognize

Task 5.
Fill in the blanks with appropriate words from Task 4/
1. Even an expert would find it hard to …………. between the original painting and the copy.
2. Atatürk is the …………. and eternal leader of modern Turkey.
3. I couldn’t ………… you with your new hair and uniform.
4. The city council has plans for ……………. two new schools and a hospital.
5. Analysts believe that economic growth will be ………….. in the third quarter.
6. These results don’t mean anything to me. I need someone to ………….. them.
7. The amount an employee earns …………. on the kind of work he/she is doing.
8. This new machine developed by NASA can ………… conditions in space.
9. All job applications are ………… through the computer system developed for the Department of
Human Resources.
10. We hope that the agreement will bring an end to years of ……….. between the two countries.
11. Ronaldo and Messi ……………. many young people to take up football.
12. Unemployment is …………… to increase to 700,000 by the end of the year.
13. Dreaming is a highly complex …………… activity.

Task 6.
Working in groups of 4-5 students, prepare an AI timeline showing the important dates, key figures
and contributions these people have made to the field of AI. If possible, find photos of key people
over the internet and place these photos on the timeline.