IT2206
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence 1. Practical intelligence: Contextual – This involves a person's ability
Artificial Intelligence
Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge. It includes the ability
to benefit from past experiences, act decisively to solve problems, and adapt
to new situations (Gupta & Mangla, 2020).
The term Artificial Intelligence (AI) was coined by John McCarthy. Numerous
definitions for AI have been proposed by scientists and researchers, such as
the following (Gupta & Mangla, 2020; Russell & Norvig, 2022):
• AI is a part of computer science that is concerned with designing intelligent
computer systems that exhibit the characteristics associated with
intelligence in human behavior.
• AI is a branch of computer science that deals with the way of representing
knowledge using symbols rather than numbers and with heuristic methods
for processing information.
• AI is not only concerned with understanding but also building intelligent
entities or machines that can compute how to act effectively and safely in
a wide variety of novel situations.
• AI is one of the most interesting and fast-growing fields in the industry,
which generates over a trillion dollars of revenue a year.
• AI currently encompasses a huge variety of subfields that involves wide-
ranging intellectual tasks, such as playing chess, driving cars, diagnosing
diseases and many more.
The eight (8) types of intelligence proposed by Howard Gardner (Gupta &
Mangla, 2020):
1. Linguistic: spoken and written language skills
2. Logical-Mathematical: number skills
3. Musical: performance or composition skills
4. Spatial: ability to evaluate and analyze the visual world
5. Bodily-Kinesthetic: dance or athletic ability
6. Interpersonal: skills in understanding and relating to others
7. Intrapersonal: skills in understanding the self
8. Nature: skills in understanding the natural world
The Triarchic Theory of Intelligence that was proposed by Robert Sternberg
contends that there are three (3) categories of intelligence which are practical
intelligence, creative intelligence, and analytical intelligence, and these can
further be broken down into the following subcategories (Vinney, 2020):
01 Handout 1
 student.feedback@sti.edu
to function effectively in a particular environment that imposes
different situations daily.
2. Creative intelligence: Experimental – This involves a person's
ability to adapt to new situations and produce new ideas. This
encompasses the idea that there is a continuum of experience from
novel to automation to which intelligence can be applied.
3. Analytical intelligence: Componential – This involves the IQ
measurement of a person based on a standard IQ test.
Foundations of Artificial Intelligence
Philosophy
Common questions:
o How does the mind arise from a physical brain?
o Where does knowledge come from?
o How does knowledge lead to action?
The most vital element in the philosophical picture of the mind is the
connection between knowledge and action, since intelligence requires action
as well as reasoning. Moreover, only by understanding how actions are
justified can we understand how to build an agent whose actions are justifiable.
The following are some historical points in philosophy relevant to AI (Russell
& Norvig, 2022).
• Aristotle was the first to formulate a precise set of laws governing the
rational part of the mind. He developed an information system of
syllogisms for proper reasoning, which in principle allowed one to generate
conclusions mechanically, given the initial premises.
• Ramon Llull devised a system of reasoning published as Ars Magna or
The Great Art, which involves a system that uses an actual mechanical
device: a set of paper wheels that could be rotated into different
permutations.
• Thomas Hobbes suggested the idea of a "thinking machine" and that
reasoning was like a numerical computation – adding and subtracting.
• René Descartes gave the first clear discussion of the distinction between
mind and matter. He expressed that a purely physical conception of the
mind seems to leave a little room for free will. In addition, he was also a
proponent of dualism.
• David Hume proposed the principle of induction which encompasses the
idea that general rules are acquired by exposure to repeat associations
*Property of STI
Page 1 of 4

between elements, and this is through his work A Treatise of Human
Nature.
• Rudolf Carnap and Carl Hempel attempted to analyze the acquisition of
knowledge from experience, through the confirmation theory, by
quantifying the degree of belief that should be assigned to logical
sentences based on their connections that may either confirm or not.
Mathematics
Common questions:
o What are the formal rules that draw valid conclusions?
o How do we reason with uncertain information?
o What can be computed?
The leap to a formal science required the mathematization of logic, probability,
and the introduction of a new branch of mathematics that involves
computation. Below are the most significant development in the field of
mathematics which are relevant to AI (Russell & Norvig, 2022):
• In mathematics, the idea of formal logic began with the work of George
Boole, who worked out the details of propositional logic, commonly known
as Boolean Logic.
• Gerolamo Cardano first framed the idea of probability, describing it in
terms of the possible outcomes of betting events. The theory of probability
can be perceived as a process of generalizing the logic of situations with
uncertain information, which is of great importance in AI development.
• Jacob Bernoulli, Pierre Laplace, and many others contributed in the
advancement of the theory of probability and introduced new statistical
methods.
• The formalization of probability, combined with the availability of data, led
to the emergence of statistics as a field.
• Ronald Fisher is considered the first modern statistician who brought
together the idea of probability, experiment design, analysis of data, and
computing.
• Alan Turing tried to characterize exactly which functions on integers are
computable – capable of being computed by an effective procedure.
• Although computability is important to understand computations, the
notion of tractability had a greater impact on AI development. A problem
is called intractable if the time required to solve instances of the problem
grows exponentially with the size of the instances.
01 Handout 1
 student.feedback@sti.edu
IT2206
Neuroscience
Common question:
o How do brains process information?
Neuroscience is the study of the nervous system, particularly the brain.
Although the exact way in which the brain enables thought is one of the great
mysteries of science, the fact that it does enable thought has been appreciated
for thousands of years. Brains and digital computers have slightly different
properties. Computers have a cycle time that is a million times faster than a
brain, but the brain makes up for that with far more storage and interconnection
than high-end computers. Nonetheless, computers with virtually unlimited
capacity still require further conceptual breakthroughs in order to fully
understand and possess human intelligence. The following are some
neuroscience developments that are relative to AI (Russell & Norvig, 2022):
• Paul Broca's investigation of aphasia (speech deficit) in brain-damaged
patients initiated the study of the brain's functional organization.
• Camillo Golgi developed the staining technique that allows the observation
of individual neurons.
• The measurement of intact brain activity began with the invention by Hans
Berger of the electroencephalograph (EEG)
• The development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) gave
neuroscientists detailed images of brain activity, enabling measurements
that correspond in interesting ways to ongoing cognitive processes.
• The development of brain-machine interfaces for both sensing and motor
control shed light on many aspects of neural systems. A remarkable
finding from this work is that the brain is able to adjust itself to different
interfaces successfully with an external device, treating it in effect like
another sensory organ.
Psychology
Common question:
o How do humans and animals think and act?
Psychology is the science or study of the mind and behavior (Merriam-
Webster, n.d.). At the present time, AI is perceived as a field that explores,
develops, and accentuates the intelligent behavior of machines. Below are the
relative developments in the field of psychology that paved the way for AI
development (Russell & Norvig, 2022):
• Hermann Von Helmholtz applied scientific method of psychology to the
study of human vision. His work, Handbook of Physiological Optics, has
*Property of STI
Page 2 of 4

been described as the most important treatise on physics and physiology
of human vision. He also insisted that perception involved a form of
unconscious logical interference.
• Wilhelm Wundt opened the first laboratory of experimental psychology,
that carefully conducted controlled experiments involving perpetual or
associative tasks for workers while introspecting on their thought
processes.
• Cognitive psychology, which views the brain as an information-processing
device, can be traced back at least to the works of William James.
• Kenneth Craik, through his work The Nature of Explanation, forcefully
reestablished the legitimacy of "mental" terminologies as beliefs and
goals, arguing that they are also scientific in nature.
• Donald Broadbent was one of the first who modeled psychological
phenomena as information processing through his book Perception and
Communication.
• Three influential papers showed how computer models could be used to
address the psychology of memory, language, and logical thinking,
respectively:
1. The Magic Number Seven by George Miller
2. Three Models of Language by Noam Chomsky
3. The Logic Theory Machine by Allen Newell and Herbert Simon
• Doug Engelbart, one of the pioneers of human-computer interaction (HCI),
championed the idea of intelligence augmentation, which encompasses
the idea that computers should augment human abilities rather than
automate human tasks.
Linguistics
Common question:
o How does language relate to thought?
Understanding language requires an understanding of the subject matter and
context, and not just the structure. Most of the early work in knowledge
representation were tied to language and refined by research in linguistics.
The following are some of the significant events relative to AI (Russell &
Norvig, 2022):
• Burrhus Frederic Skinner published Verbal Behavior which is a detailed
and comprehensive account of the behaviorist approach to language
learning.
01 Handout 1
 student.feedback@sti.edu
IT2206
• Noam Chomsky published a book, Syntactic Structure, which addressed
the notion of creativity in language, and it was formal enough that it could
in principle be programmed.
• Modern linguistics and AI started to flourish about the same time Chomsky
published his book. The two (2) concepts grew together, intersecting in a
hybrid field called computational linguistics and natural languages.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence evidently filled, and is continuously filling, gaps of human
knowledge. In line with this, specific advantages and disadvantages can be
clearly defined as follows (Kumar, 2019):
Advantages Disadvantages
• Reduction of human error • High cost of development or
• Takes risks instead of humans creation
• High availability • Unemployment
• Helps in repetitive jobs with high • Absence of emotion
accuracy performance • Inability to think outside of the box
• Automated digital assistance
• Faster decision making
• Empowering new inventions and
innovations
Implementation Areas of Artificial Intelligence
The concept of artificial intelligence (AI) has been applied in numerous fields.
Below are some implementation areas of AI (Gupta & Mangla, 2020):
• Problem Solving – This is the first ever application area of AI research.
The aim of this particular area of research is to implement the procedures
of solving problems, the way humans do, on AI systems.
• Game Playing – Early research in this area was performed using common
board games such as checkers and chess. The board configurations used
in playing these games are easily represented in computers without the
requirement of complex formalisms. Developments in computer game
playing programs are not easy, but continuous.
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) – The main goal of NLP is to
develop software or computer systems that will understand specific human
languages, wherein people may ask questions directly to the computer
and the computer will then provide a constructive response using the same
language.
*Property of STI
Page 3 of 4
 IT2206

• Robotics – This is the science or study of technology primarily associated implementation that runs within some physical system (Russell & Norvig,
with the design, fabrication, theory, and application of robots. Robots are 2022).
machines that can be programmed to perform specific tasks.
• Speech Recognition – This implementation area of AI involves intelligent When an agent is immersed in an environment, it generates a sequence of
systems that are capable of hearing and comprehending language in actions according to the percepts it receives. This sequence of action causes
terms of sentences and their meaning while a human talks to them. These the environment to go through a sequence of states. If the sequence is
systems can handle different accents, slang words, background noises, desirable, then the agent has performed well. This notion of desirability is
and even changes in a human's voice due to cold. captured by performance measures that evaluate any given sequence of
environment states. Below is a detailed example of an agent in a task
Agents and Environments environment with its corresponding actuators, sensors, and performance
An agent pertains to anything that can be viewed as perceiving its environment measures (Russell & Norvig, 2022).
through sensors and acting upon that environment through particular
actuators. Here are some examples (Russell & Norvig, 2022): Agent Performance
Environment Actuators Sensors
• A human agent has eyes, ears, and other organs that serve as sensors, Type Measures
while hands and legs act as the actuators. Safety, speed, Road condition, Steering, Cameras,
comfortable trip, traffic condition, accelerator, speedometer,
• A robotic agent might have cameras and infrared range finders as sensors, Taxi
profit, legality customer, signals, brakes GPS, engine
and various motors as actuators. driver
weather sensors,
• A software agent receives file contents, network packets, and human input accelerometer
through devices that serve as sensors, and acts on the environment by
writing files, sending network packets, and displaying information or The Concept of Rationality
generating sounds. In artificial intelligence (AI), rationality at any given point in time may depend
on the following (Russell & Norvig, 2022):
The environment could be everything. In particular, it is the part that affects o The performance measure that defines the criterion of success.
what an agent perceives and is also affected by the agent's actions. A sensor o The agent's prior knowledge of the environment.
pertains to devices that perceive conditions within an environment, such as o The actions that the agent can perform.
measure of heat, pressure, and sound. An actuator involves mechanisms that o The agent's percept sequence to date.
produce motion based on a detected stimulus. Some examples of actuators
are transmissions, gears, cables, and linkages. The four points stated above leads to the definition of a rational agent that is:
for each possible precept sequence, a rational agent should select an action
In artificial intelligence (AI), the term percept is commonly used to refer to the that is expected to maximize its performance measure, given the evidence
content an agent's sensors are perceiving. An agent's percept sequence is the provided by the percept sequence and whatever built-in knowledge the agent
complete history of everything the agent has ever perceived. Generally, an has (Russell & Norvig, 2022).
agent's choice of action at any given instant can depend on its built-in
knowledge and on the entire percept sequence observed to date, and not on References:
anything it hasn't perceived. Gupta, N. & Mangla, R. (2020). Artificial intelligence basics: A self-teaching introduction. Mercury Learning and Information LLC
Kumar, S. (2019, November 26). Advantages and disadvantages of artificial intelligence. Retrieved on January 24, 2022 form
https://towardsdatascience.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-artificial-intelligence-182a5ef6588c
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Psychology. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved on January 25, 2022 from https://www.merriam-
An agent's behavior is described by the agent function that maps any given webster.com/dictionary/psychology
percept sequence to an action. Internally, the agent function for an artificial Russell, S. & Norvig, P. (2022). Artificial Intelligence: A modern approach (4th ed.). Pearson Education Limited
Vinney. C. (2020, January 18). Understanding the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence. Retrieved on January 24, 2022 from
agent will then be implemented by an agent program. The agent function is https://www.thoughtco.com/triarchic-theory-of-intelligence-4172497
an abstract mathematical description, while the agent program is a concrete
01 Handout 1 *Property of STI
 student.feedback@sti.edu Page 4 of 4