Module 1: Introduction to AI

JSS MAHAVIDYAPEETHA

JSS ACADEMY OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION, Bengaluru

Department of Information Science & Engineering
&
Department of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Module 1: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence
 AI refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are
programmed to think and act like humans.
 It involves the development of algorithms and computer programs that can
perform tasks that typically require human intelligence such as visual perception,
speech recognition, decision- making and language translation.
 Wide range of applications from virtual personal assistants to self-driving cars.
 Intelligence – ability to learn and solve problems.
 Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge. Knowledge is the
information acquired through experience. Experience is the knowledge gained
through exposure.
 Intelligence is composed of reasoning, learning, problem solving, perception,
Linguistic intelligence.
 Main focus of AI is towards understanding human behavior and performance. This
can be done by creating computers with human-like intelligence and capabilities.
Uses of Artificial Intelligence:
Artificial Intelligence has many practical applications across various industries and
domains, including:
 Healthcare: AI is used for medical diagnosis, drug discovery, and predictive
analysis of diseases.
 Finance: AI helps in credit scoring, fraud detection, and financial forecasting.
 Retail: AI is used for product recommendations, price optimization, and supply
chain management.
 Manufacturing: AI helps in quality control, predictive maintenance, and
production optimization.
 Transportation: AI is used for autonomous vehicles, traffic prediction, and route
optimization.
 Customer service: AI-powered chatbots are used for customer support, answering
frequently asked questions, and handling simple requests.
 Security: AI is used for facial recognition, intrusion detection, and cybersecurity
threat analysis.
 Marketing: AI is used for targeted advertising, customer segmentation, and
sentiment analysis.
 Education: AI is used for personalized learning, adaptive testing, and intelligent
tutoring systems.

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Need for Artificial Intelligence

 To create expert systems that exhibit intelligent behavior with the capability to
learn, demonstrate, explain, and advise its users.
 Helping machines find solutions to complex problems like humans do and
applying them as algorithms in a computer-friendly manner.
 Improved efficiency: Artificial intelligence can automate tasks and processes that
are time-consuming and require a lot of human effort. This can help improve
efficiency and productivity, allowing humans to focus on more creative and high-
level tasks.
 Better decision-making: Artificial intelligence can analyze large amounts of data
and provide insights that can aid in decision-making. This can be especially useful
in domains like finance, healthcare, and logistics, where decisions can have
significant impacts on outcomes.
 Enhanced accuracy: Artificial intelligence algorithms can process data quickly and
accurately, reducing the risk of errors that can occur in manual processes. This can
improve the reliability and quality of results.
 Personalization: Artificial intelligence can be used to personalize experiences for
users, tailoring recommendations, and interactions based on individual
preferences and behaviors. This can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
 Exploration of new frontiers: Artificial intelligence can be used to explore new
frontiers and discover new knowledge that is difficult or impossible for humans
to access. This can lead to new breakthroughs in fields like astronomy, genetics,
and drug discovery.
Approaches to AI:
There are 4 approaches to AI
1. Thinking Humanly 2. Thinking Rationally 3. Acting Humanly 4. Acting Rationally
1) Thinking Humanly: (The
cognitive modelling approach)
 The idea behind this
approach is to determine
whether the computer
thinks like a human.
 If we are going to say that a
given program thinks like a
human, we must have
some way of determining
how humans think. We
need to get inside the actual workings of human minds.
 There are three ways to do this:
o through introspection—trying to catch our own thoughts as they go by;
o through psychological experiments—observing a person in action; and
o through brain imaging—observing the brain in action.

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2) Thinking rationally (The laws of thought approach)

 The idea behind this approach is to determine whether the computer thinks
rationally i.e. with logical reasoning.
 The Greek philosopher Aristotle was one of the first to attempt to codify “right
thinking,” that SYLLOGISM is, irrefutable reasoning processes.
 His syllogisms provided patterns for argument structures that always yielded
correct conclusions when given correct premises—for example, “Socrates is a
man; all men are mortal; therefore, Socrates is mortal.”
 A syllogism is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive
at a conclusion based on 2 propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true.
 Two main obstacles to this approach
o It is not easy to take informal knowledge and state it in the formal terms
required by logical notation, particularly when the knowledge is less than
100% certain.
o There is a big difference between solving a problem “in principle” and
solving it in practice.
The above two approaches are concerned with thought processes and reasoning.
3) Acting Humanly(Turing test Approach)
 This approach was designed by Alan Turing.

 The idea behind this approach is that a computer passes the test if a human
interrogator, after asking some written questions, cannot identify whether the
written responses come from a human or from a computer.
 This test is used to evaluate a computer acting like humanly.
 Eg: Google A1 Assistant had a conversation with a salon person through phone
and booked a haircut reservation for his client. It uses high-end computational
model program that can be used to have a phone conversation like a real human.
 Did you know? Kuki chatbot is a 5-time winner of a turing test competition. It is
available to chat online, facebook messenger, Telegram etc.
 To pass turing test, the computer require the following skills:
o Natural language processing to enable it to communicate successfully in
English
o knowledge representation to store what it knows or hears;
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o automated reasoning to use the stored information to answer questions

and to draw new conclusions
o machine learning to adapt to new circumstances and to detect and the
patterns.
 Total Turing Test includes a video signal so that the interrogator can test the
subject’s perceptual abilities, as well as the opportunity for the interrogator to
pass physical objects ―through the hatch.
 To pass the total Turing Test, the computer will need
o computer vision to perceive objects, and
o Robotics to manipulate objects and move about.
These six disciplines compose most of AI.
4) Acting rationally: The rational agent approach
 The idea behind this approach is to determine whether the computer acts
rationally i.e. with logical reasoning.
 An agent is just something that acts.
 All computer programs do something, but computer agents are expected to do
more: operate autonomously, perceive their environment, persist over a
prolonged time period, adapt to change, and create and pursue goals.
 A rational agent is one that acts so as to achieve the best outcome or, when there
is uncertainty, the best expected outcome.
 In the “laws of thought” approach to AI, the emphasis was on correct inferences.
Making correct inferences is sometimes part of being a rational agent, because one
way to act rationally is to reason logically to the conclusion that a given action will
achieve one’s goals and then to act on that conclusion.
 All the skills needed for the Turing Test also allow an agent to act rationally.
 The rational-agent approach has two advantages over the other approaches.
o It is more general than the “laws of thought” approach because correct
inference is just one of several possible mechanisms for achieving
rationality.
o It is more amenable to scientific development
o The standard of rationality is mathematically well defined and completely
general.
Different types of AI with examples.
 Weak AI: Weak AI is also known as narrow AI. It is an AI system that is designed
and trained for a specific type of task. Eg. IBM’s Watson, Siri and Alexa are weak
AI. This categorization happens with the help of unsupervised programming.
 Strong AI: Strong AI is more like the human brain and is also known as artificial
general intelligence. It has cognitive abilities that help to perform unfamiliar tasks
and commands. It can find the solution to a problem and works beyond a
preprogrammed algorithm. Eg. Visual perception, speech recognition, decision
making, and translations between languages.

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 Super AI: Super AI is AI that to go beyond in excellence than human intelligence

and ability. It’s also known as artificial super intelligence (ASI) or super
intelligence. Eg. It’s the best at everything — maths, science, medicine, hobbies.

Foundations of AI
Brief history of the disciplines that contributed ideas, viewpoints, and techniques to AI
are as follows:
1. Philosophy(the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge):
o Can formal rules be used to draw valid conclusions?
o How does the mind arise from a physical brain?
o Where does knowledge come from?
o How does knowledge lead to action?
 Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), was the first to formulate a precise set of laws governing
the rational part of the mind. He developed an informal system of syllogisms for
proper reasoning, which in principle allowed one to generate conclusions
mechanically, given initial premises. Eg. all dogs are animals; all animals have four
legs; therefore all dogs have four legs
 Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) proposed that reasoning was like numerical
computation that ―we add and subtract in our silent thoughts.‖
 Rene Descartes (1596–1650) gave the first clear discussion of the distinction
between mind and matter and of the problems that arise.
 The empiricism movement, starting with Francis Bacon's (1561— 1626).
 The confirmation theory of Carnap and Carl Hempel (1905-1997) attempted to
analyze the acquisition of knowledge from experience.
 Carnap's book The Logical Structure of the World (1928) defined an explicit
computational procedure for extracting knowledge from elementary experiences.
It was probably the first theory of mind as a computational process.
 The final element in the philosophical picture of the mind is the connection
between knowledge and action. This question is vital to Al because intelligence
requires action as well as reasoning.
2. Mathematics
o What are the formal rules to draw valid conclusions?
o What can be computed? Formal science required a level of mathematical
formalization in three fundamental areas: logic, computation, and
probability.
 Logic: George Boole (1815–1864), who worked out the details of propositional, or
Boolean, logic.
 In 1879, Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) extended Boole’s logic to include objects and
relations, creating the firstorder logic that is used today. First order logic –
 Contains predicates, quantifiers and variables
E.g. Philosopher(a) ⇒ Scholar(a) ∀x,
effect_carona(x) ⇒ quarantine(x) ∀x,

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King(x) ^ Greedy (x) ⇒ Evil (x)

 Alfred Tarski (1902–1983) introduced a theory of reference that shows how to
relate the objects in a logic to objects in the real world.
 Logic and Computation: The first nontrivial algorithm is thought to be Euclid’s
algorithm for computing greatest common divisors(GCD).
 Beside logic and computation, the third great contribution of mathematics to AI is
the probability. The Italian Gerolamo Cardanao (1501-1576) first framed the idea
of probability, describing it in terms of the possible outcomes of gambling events.
 Thomas Bayes (1702-1761) proposed a rule for updating probabilities in the light
of new evidence. Baye’s rule underlies most modern approaches to uncertain
reasoning in AI systems.
3. Economics
o How should we make decisions so as to maximize payoff?
o How should we do this when the payoff may be far in the future?
The science of economics got its start in 1776, when Scottish philosopher Adam
Smith treat it as a science, using the idea that economies can be thought of as consisting
of individual agents maximizing their own economic well being.
Decision theory, which combines probability theory with utility theory, provides
a formal and complete framework for decisions (economic or otherwise) made under
uncertainty— that is, in cases where probabilistic descriptions appropriately capture the
decision maker’s environment.
Von Neumann and Morgenstern’s development of game theory included the
surprising result that, for some games, a rational agent should adopt policies that are
randomized. Unlike decision theory, game theory does not offer an unambiguous
prescription for selecting actions.
4. Neuroscience: How do brain process information?
Neuroscience is the study of the nervous system, particularly the brain.
 335 B.C. Aristotle wrote, "Of all the animals, man has the largest brain in
proportion to his size."
 Nicolas Rashevsky (1936, 1938) was the first to apply mathematical models to the

study of the nervous system. Fig.

A neuron cell of human brain.

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 The measurement of intact brain activity began in 1929 with the invention by
Hans Berger of the electroencephalograph (EEG).
 The recent development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) (Ogawa
et al., 1990; Cabeza and Nyberg, 2001) is giving neuroscientists unprecedentedly
detailed images of brain activity, enabling measurements that correspond in
interesting ways to ongoing cognitive processes.
5. Psychology:
How do humans and animals think and act?
 Behaviorism movement, led by John Watson(1878-1958). Behaviorists insisted on
studying only objective measures of the percepts (stimulus) given to an animal
and its resulting actions(or response). Behaviorism discovered a lot about rats and
pigeons but had less success at understanding human.
 Cognitive psychology, views the brain as an information processing device.
Common view among psychologist that a cognitive theory should be like a
computer program.(Anderson 1980) i.e. It should describe a detailed information
processing mechanism whereby some cognitive function might be implemented.
6. Computer engineering:
How can we build an efficient computer?
 For artificial intelligence to succeed, we need two things: intelligence and an
artifact. The computer has been the artifact (object) of choice.
 The first operational computer was the electromechanical Heath Robinson, built
in 1940 by Alan Turing's team for a single purpose: deciphering German
messages.
 The first operational programmable computer was the Z-3, the invention of
Konrad Zuse in Germany in 1941.
 The first electronic computer, the ABC, was assembled by John Atanasoff and his
student Clifford Berry between 1940 and 1942 at Iowa State University.
 The first programmable machine was a loom, devised in 1805 by Joseph Marie
Jacquard (1752-1834) that used punched cards to store instructions for the
pattern to be woven.
7. Control theory and cybernetics:
How can artifacts operate under their own control?
Ktesibios of Alexandria (c. 250 B.C.) built the first self-controlling machine: a water clock
with a regulator that maintained a constant flow rate. This invention changed the
definition of what an artifact could do.
Modern control theory, especially the branch known as stochastic optimal control, has as
its goal the design of systems that maximize an objective function over time. This roughly
OBJECTIVE FUNCTION matches our view of Al: designing systems that behave optimally.

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Calculus and matrix algebra- the tools of control theory. The tools of logical inference and
computation allowed AI researchers to consider problems such as language, vision, and
planning that fell completely outside the control theorist’s purview.
8. Linguistics:
How does language relate to thought?
In 1957, B. F. Skinner published Verbal Behavior. This was a comprehensive, detailed
account of the behaviorist approach to language learning, written by the foremost expert
in the field.
 Noam Chomsky, who had just published a book on his own theory, Syntactic
Structures.Chomsky pointed out that the behaviorist theory did not address the
notion of creativity in language.
 Modern linguistics and AI were ―born at about the same time, and grew up
together, intersecting in a hybrid field called computational linguistics or natural
language processing.
 The problem of understanding language soon turned out to be considerably
morecomplex than it seemed in 1957. Understanding language requires an
understanding of the subject matter and context, not just an understanding of the
structure of sentences.
 knowledge representation (the study of how to put knowledge into a form that a
computer can reason with)- tied to language and informed by research in
linguistics.
History of AI

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Artificial Intelligence is not a new word and not a new technology for researchers. This
technology is much older than you would imagine. Even there are the myths of
Mechanical men in Ancient Greek and Egyptian Myths. Following are some milestones in
the history of AI which defines the journey from the AI generation to till date
development.

Maturation of Artificial Intelligence (1943-1952)

 Year 1943: The first work which is now recognized as AI was done by Warren
McCulloch and Walter pits in 1943. They proposed a model of artificial neurons.
 Year 1949: Donald Hebb demonstrated an updating rule for modifying the connection
strength between neurons. His rule is now called Hebbian learning.
 Year 1950: The Alan Turing who was an English mathematician and pioneered
Machine learning in 1950. Alan Turing publishes "Computing Machinery and
Intelligence" in which he proposed a test. The test can check the machine's ability to
exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to human intelligence, called a Turing test.
The birth of Artificial Intelligence (1952-1956)
 Year 1955: An Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon created the "first artificial
intelligence program"Which was named as "Logic Theorist". This program had
proved 38 of 52 Mathematics theorems, and find new and more elegant proofs for
some theorems.
 Year 1956: The word "Artificial Intelligence" first adopted by American Computer
scientist John McCarthy at the Dartmouth Conference. For the first time, AI coined as
an academic field.
At that time high-level computer languages such as FORTRAN, LISP, or COBOL were
invented. And the enthusiasm for AI was very high at that time.
The golden years-Early enthusiasm (1956-1974)
 Year 1966: The researchers emphasized developing algorithms which can solve
mathematical problems. Joseph Weizenbaum created the first chatbot in 1966, which
was named as ELIZA.
 Year 1972: The first intelligent humanoid robot was built in Japan which was named
as WABOT-1.
The first AI winter (1974-1980)
 The duration between years 1974 to 1980 was the first AI winter duration. AI
winter refers to the time period where computer scientist dealt with a severe
shortage of funding from government for AI researches.
 During AI winters, an interest of publicity on artificial intelligence was decreased.
A boom of AI (1980-1987)
 Year 1980: After AI winter duration, AI came back with "Expert System". Expert
systems were programmed that emulate the decision-making ability of a human
expert.
 In the Year 1980, the first national conference of the American Association of
Artificial Intelligence was held at Stanford University.
The second AI winter (1987-1993)
 The duration between the years 1987 to 1993 was the second AI Winter duration.
 Again Investors and government stopped in funding for AI research as due to high
cost but not efficient result. The expert system such as XCON was very cost
effective.
The emergence of intelligent agents (1993-2011)

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 Year 1997: In the year 1997, IBM Deep Blue beats world chess champion, Gary
Kasparov, and became the first computer to beat a world chess champion.
 Year 2002: for the first time, AI entered the home in the form of Roomba, a
vacuum cleaner.
 Year 2006: AI came in the Business world till the year 2006. Companies like
Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix also started using AI.
Deep learning, big data and artificial general intelligence (2011-present)
 Year 2011: In the year 2011, IBM's Watson won jeopardy, a quiz show, where it
had to solve the complex questions as well as riddles. Watson had proved that it
could understand natural language and can solve tricky questions quickly.
 Year 2012: Google has launched an Android app feature "Google now", which was
able to provide information to the user as a prediction.
 Year 2014: In the year 2014, Chatbot "Eugene Goostman" won a competition in
the infamous "Turing test."
 Year 2018: The "Project Debater" from IBM debated on complex topics with two
master debaters and also performed extremely well.
 Google has demonstrated an AI program "Duplex" which was a virtual assistant
and which had taken hairdresser appointment on call, and lady on other side
didn't notice that she was talking with the machine.
Now AI has developed to a remarkable level. The concept of Deep learning, big data, and
data science are now trending like a boom. Nowadays companies like Google, Facebook,
IBM, and Amazon are working with AI and creating amazing devices. The future of
Artificial Intelligence is inspiring and will come with high intelligence.

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