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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION TO AI
 Topics we will cover
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Introduction to AI
 Objectives/Goals of AI
 What is AI?

Approaches to AI – making computer:

 Think like a human ( Thinking humanly)
 Act like a human (Acting humanly)

 Think rationally (Thinking rationally)

 Act rationally (Acting rationally)

The Foundations of AI
Bits of History and the State of the Art
 What is AI?
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Artificial intelligence (AI):

 AIis one of the newest sciences.
 AI is the study of intelligent behavior and

 AI is also concerned with the implementation of

a computer program which exhibits intelligent
behavior.
Intelligence
 Intelligence is the capability of observing, learning,
remembering & reasoning.
 AI attempts to develop intelligent agents.
 What is AI?
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Approaches to AI – making computer

Views of AI fall into four categories:

Thinking humanly Thinking rationally

Acting humanly Acting rationally
A human-centered approach must be an empirical science, involving hypothesis and
experimental confirmation.
A rationalist approach involves a combination of mathematics and engineering.

The course textbook (Russell/Norvig) advocates "acting rationally"

 Acting humanly: Turing Test
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 Making a computer act like a human being.
 Turing (1950) "Computing machinery and intelligence":
 "Can machines behave intelligently?"
 Operational test for intelligent behavior: the Imitation Game.

 Turing Test: Operational test for intelligent behavior.

 Suggested major components of AI: knowledge,
reasoning, language understanding, learning.
 Thinking humanly: cognitive modeling
 Making a computer think like a human being.
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 Requires scientific theories of internal activities of the brain.
 There are two ways to do this:
 Through introspection and,
 Through psychological experiments.
 How to validate theories? Requires:
1) Predicting and testing behavior of human subjects.
(top-down)
2) Direct identification from neurological data.
(bottom-up)
 Both approaches (roughly, Cognitive Science and Cognitive
Neuroscience) are now distinct from AI.
 Thinking rationally: logical thought
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 Making a computer think rationally
 Use the laws of logic to determine computer’s reasoning.
 A system is rational if it thinks the right thing through correct
reasoning.
 Aristotle: provided the correct arguments/ thought structures that
always gave correct conclusions given correct premises.
 Abebe is a man; all men are mortal; therefore Abebe is mortal

 These Laws of thought governed the operation of the mind and

initiated the field of Logic.
 Problem:
 Not all intelligent behavior is determined by logical
deliberation (e.g. taking your hand out of a fire)
 It is not easy to take informal knowledge.

 Also formal logic in unable to handle uncertain knowledge.

 Acting rationally: rational agent
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 Making a computer act rationally

 Rational behavior: doing “the right thing”.
 “The right thing”: that which is expected to maximize goal
achievement, given the available information.
 Doesn't necessarily involve thinking – e.g., blinking reflex – but
thinking should be in the service of rational action.
 Doing the right thing so as to achieve one’s goal, given one’s
beliefs.
 AI is the study and construction of rational agents (an agent that
perceives and acts).
 This is the focus of this course …
 Rational agents
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An agent is an entity that perceives and

acts.
This course is about designing rational
agents.

Abstractly, an agent is a function from

percept histories to actions:
[f: P*  A]
A percept is a piece of information perceived by
the agent.
 The Foundations of AI
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 Philosophy (428 B . C .-present)

 Can formal rules be used to draw valid conclusions?
 How does the mental mind arise from a physical brain?

 Where does knowledge come from?

 How does knowledge lead to action?

 The Foundations of AI
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 Mathematics (800 - present)

 What are the formal rules to draw valid conclusions?
 What can be computed?

 How do we reason with uncertain information?

 Economics (1776 - present)

 How should we make decisions so as to maximize payoff?

 How should we do this when others may not go along?

 How should we do this when the payoff may be far in the

future?
 The Foundations of AI
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 Neuroscience (1861-present)
 How do brains process information?
 Psychology (1879-present)
 How do humans and animals think and act?

 Computer engineering (1940-present)

 How can we build an efficient computer?

 Control theory and Cybernetics (1948-present)

 How can artifacts operate under their own control?

 Linguistics (1957-present)
 How does language relate to thought?
 The History of Artificial Intelligence
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 (1943 - 1955) - The gestation of artificial intelligence.
- 1943: McCulloch & Pitts: Boolean circuit model of brain.
- 1949: Hebbian Learning: demonstrated a simple updating
rule for modifying the connection strengths between neurons.
- 1950: Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence".
 (1956) - The birth of artificial intelligence.
- The term "Artificial Intelligence" was first adopted.
 (1950’s) - A Time Of Optimism.
 (1958) - LISP invented.
- LISP stands for List Processing.
- The most common AI programming language.
 (1960’s) - AI Discovers Computational Complexity.
 The History of Artificial Intelligence
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 (1966 - 1973)- A dose of reality.
- AI discovers computational complexity.
-Neural network research almost disappears.

 (1969 - 1979) - Early development of knowledge-based

systems (expert systems). The key to power?
 (1980 - present) - AI becomes an industry .
 (1986 - present) - Neural networks return to popularity.
 (1987 - present) - AI becomes a science.
 (1995 - present) - The emergence of intelligent agents.
 The State of the Art
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What can AI do today?

 Autonomous planning and scheduling.
 Game playing.

 Autonomous control.

 Diagnosis: Medical diagnosis programs.

 Logistics Planning.

 Robotics.

 Language understanding and problem solving.

Any Question?