Artificial Intelligence.

Lecture02
Basic concepts and Applications of AI
 Artificial Intelligence Definitions

 Artificial intelligence (AI) is a study in which computer

systems are made to think like human beings.
 Rich & Knight considered AI as the study of how to make
computers do things which at the moment people are
better at.
 AI is also considered to be a branch of computer science/IT
that is concerned with the automation of intelligent
behavior. Luger & Stubblefield, 1993.

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Why study AI?

 Three main goals of AI:

1. To understand human intelligence better. We test
theories of human intelligence by writing programs which
emulate it.
2. Is to create a perfect model of human mind.
3. To create useful “smart” programs able to do tasks that
would normally require a human expert.
 Major Branches of AI (1)

 Intelligent agents: Entities that perceives environment using sensors and

acts on it using actuators to achieve specific goals

 Vision systems: Capture, store, and manipulate visual images and pictures

 Robotics: Study of Mechanical and computer devices that are

programmable to perform tedious tasks with high precision

 Expert systems: Stores knowledge and makes inferences (reasoning).

Simulate the reasoning process of a human being
 Major Branches of AI (2)

 Machine Learning system: Computer system that changes

how it functions or reacts to situations based on feedback.

 Natural language processing: A system that understand and

react to statements and commands made in a “natural”
language, such as English.

 Artificial Neural networks: Computer system that can act

like or simulate the functioning of the human brain
 Artificial
intelligence

Vision Learning
systems systems

Robotics
Expert systems

Neural networks
Natural language
processing
Most used programming languages for AI

Scratch
Processing
Disciplines that contributes To AI

 Many disciplines contribute to goal of creating/modelling

intelligent entities:
 Computer Science/IT – for soft ware devpt

 Psychology (human reasoning)

 Philosophy (nature of belief, rationality, etc)

 Linguistics (structure and meaning of language)

 Human Biology (how brain works)

 Subject draws on ideas from each discipline.

 Intelligence Tasks

AI tasks are also referred to as AI problems.

There are two main AI Tasks

(a) mundane Reasoning tasks
(b) expert reasoning tasks.

 Intelligent entities (or “agents”) need to be able to do both

“mundane” and “expert” tasks:
 Mundane Reasoning tasks

 These refers to all those tasks which (nearly) all of us can

routinely do (to various abilities) in order to act and
interact in the world.
 They do not require any training
 Mundane reasoning tasks

 They include:

1.Vision: The ability to make sense of what we see.

2. Natural Language processing: The ability to communicate

with others in English or another natural language.

3. Planning: The ability to decide on a good sequence of

actions to achieve your goals.

4. Robotics: The ability to move and act in the world, possibly

responding to new perceptions.
 Expert reasoning tasks

 Tasks that only some people are good at, and which require
extensive training.
 It can be especially useful to automate these tasks, as there
may be a shortage of human experts.

 For examples:
1. Medical Diagnosis
2. Troubleshooting Equipments
3. Configuration of Computer Systems
4. Financial Planning
 AI assumptions

 AI research makes the following assumptions:

1. That human intelligence can be reduced to symbols,
2. It is possible to manipulate these symbols in order to
represent knowledge.
3. It does not matter what medium is used to manipulate these
symbols .i.e. the medium for representing knowledge does
not have to be a biological brain.
 AI programs and Symbols

 AI Programs Manipulate Symbols to Solve Problems

 A symbol is a string of characters or a representation that
stands for some real-world concept

Examples:
 String of Characters: Intelligence, Product, Defendant,0.8,
Chocolate
 Representation of real-world concept: Diagram

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 Testing machine Intelligence: Turing Test

 Turing proposed a test that can be used to conclude whether a

machine is really intelligent.
 The Turing test involves a human (interrogator) communicating
with a computer system to be tested plus 2nd human being in a
separate room, using a computer for communication

2nd Human

1st Human
computer
(Interrogator)
System
 Testing machine Intelligence: Turing Test

 The interrogator(1st human) can ask the other 2nd

human/system any questions they like, including very
subjective questions like ``What do you think of this Poem''.
 The computer system passes Turing test if it answers so well
that the interrogator can't tell which of the two others is
human.
 i.e. If the interrogator thinks he/she is communicating with a
human while he is communicating with the computer system
 Testing machine Intelligence: Turing Test

To pass Turing Test the computer system must have the following
properties :
1. Ability to Process natural language (i.e. understand, interpret)
2. Ability to Represent knowledge;
3. Ability to Reason;
4. Ability to Learn and adapt to the new situations.
 Reading Exercise:

 Visit the following web sites and chat with Eliza agent.
 Eliza is an example of a language processing system.
 http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3
 http://www.acacialt.com.au/ai/eliza.htm

 Is Eliza intelligent?
 Practical Applications of AI
 1. Medical Diagnosis: IA techniques are used to implement
medical expert systems for diagnosing diseases
 Example: Mycin
 Practical Applications of AI

2. Game playing:
Complex games such as chess, used as a test bed for AI techniques
including searching and planning.
i.e IA techniques are used to develop computer games

3. Natural language processing:

AI is used to develop natural language interfaces (e.g. eliza, Google
search engine) and language translation as well as spell checkers
4. Machine Learning systems: intelligent systems that are flexible and
adapt to a changing environment. Example: weka which is used for
datamining
 Applications of AI

 5. Spacecraft autonomous control:

 AI techniques are used to develop Spacecraft control systems
 Spacecraft in a new unknown environment, with long communication
times to control centre on Earth, need to be able to plan their own
activities in response to local circumstances.

 Examples
 1. Read about Curiosity space rocket, launched in 2013 in NASA website,
 2. Rosetta which landed on a comet in 2014
 3. Flyby was launched from earth in 2004 and arrived on pluto in sept
2015
 Applications of AI

 6. Used to develop decision support tools

 Example:
 Ascent Technology founded at MIT, has developed an
intelligent product called Smart Airport to help with
decisions such as gate allocation, landing slots, baggage
handling etc, and is now used in several airports
throughout the world
 Applications of AI

 7. Used to develop Tax expert systems :

 They help a user work out their tax liability. Contains a
knowledge-base of tax rules and algorithms for calculating
tax owed from information supplied by the user.
 It Has a menu of questions to ask for this information, e.g.
‘What was your gross earned income over the tax year
2014/15?’
 Applications of

 Learning support systems

 Used to deliver relevant content to the learner based on
context (e.g. current activity)
 Example: Open Mobile Ambient Learning (OMAL)
application uses mobile phones to deliver relevant content
to the learner (Mwendia&Buchem,2014;Mwendia et.al
2014).
 AI Techniques

 There are various techniques that can be applied to a variety of AI

tasks .
 These techniques are concerned with how we represent, manipulate,
searching and reason with knowledge in order to solve problems.

Examples:
1. Knowledge Representation techniques
2. Searching techniques – Finding solution (s) among alternatives.
3. knowledge acquisition techniques
4. inference techniques