Introduction to AI

UNIT 1 | Yuba Raj Devkota

BIM 7 | NCCS College, Paknajol
 What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

• Intelligence is
• ability to reason
• ability to understand
• ability to create
• ability to Learn from experience
• ability to plan and execute complex tasks

• Artificial is
• Made as copy something like natural.

• So, What is Artificial Intelligence?

 What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

• Artificial Intelligence is the branch of computer science concerned with making

computers behave like humans.
• John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956, defines it as "the science and
engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer
programs."
• Major AI textbooks define artificial intelligence as "the study and design of intelligent
agents," where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and
takes actions which maximize its chances of success.
• The definitions of AI according to some text books are categorized into four
approaches and are summarized in the table below :
 System that think like Humans System that Think Rationally

“The exciting new effort to make computers “The Study of mental faculties through the use of
think…..machine with minds, in the full and literal computational models” (Charniak and
sense.” (Haugeland, 1985) McDermott, 1985)

“The automation of activities that we associate with “The study of computations that make it possible
human thinking, activities such as decision making, to perceive, reason and act”. (Winston 1992)
problem solving, learning ….” (Bellman, 1978)
System that acts like Humans System that acts Rationally

“The art of creating machine that perform functions “Computational Intelligence is the study of the
that require intelligence when performed by people” design of intelligent agents” (Poole et.al., 1998)
(Kurzweil, 1990)
“AI is concerned with intelligent behavior in
“The study of how to make computer do things at artifacts” (Nilsson, 1998)
which, at the moment, people are better” (Rich and
Knight, 1991)
 Contd….

• Top dimension is concerned with thought processes and reasoning, where as bottom
dimension addresses the behavior.
• The definition on the left measures the success in terms of fidelity of human
performance, whereas definitions on the right measure an ideal concept of intelligence,
which is called rationality.
• Human-centered approaches must be an empirical science, involving hypothesis and
experimental confirmation.
• A rationalist approach involves a combination of mathematics and engineering.
• The four approaches in more detail are as follows :
 1. Acting Humanly: The Turing Test Approach

• In 1950, Alan Turing introduced a test

to check whether a machine can think
like a human or not, this test is known
as the Turing Test. In this test, Turing
proposed that the computer can be
said to be an intelligent if it can mimic
human response under specific
conditions.
• Turing Test was introduced by Turing
in his 1950 paper, "Computing
Machinery and Intelligence," which
considered the question, "Can
Machine think?"
• The Turing test is based on a party game "Imitation game," with some modifications. This
game involves three players in which one player is Computer, another player is human
responder, and the third player is a human Interrogator, who is isolated from other two
players and his job is to find that which player is machine among two of them.

• Consider, Player A is a computer, Player B is human, and Player C is an interrogator.

Interrogator is aware that one of them is machine, but he needs to identify this on the basis
of questions and their responses.

• The conversation between all players is via keyboard and screen so the result would not
depend on the machine's ability to convert words as speech.

• The test result does not depend on each correct answer, but only how closely its responses
like a human answer. The computer is permitted to do everything possible to force a wrong
identification by the interrogator.
The questions and answers can be like:
• Interrogator: Are you a computer?
• Player A (Computer): No
• Interrogator: Multiply two large numbers such as (256896489*456725896)
• Player A: Long pause and give the wrong answer.

• In this game, if an interrogator would not be able to identify which is a machine

and which is human, then the computer passes the test successfully, and the
machine is said to be intelligent and can think like a human.
• "In 1991, the New York businessman Hugh Loebner announces the prize
competition, offering a $100,000 prize for the first computer to pass the Turing
test. However, no AI program to till date, come close to passing an undiluted
Turing test".
• Chatbots to attempt the Turing test:
• ELIZA: ELIZA was a Natural language processing computer program created by
Joseph Weizenbaum. It was created to demonstrate the ability of communication
between machine and humans. It was one of the first chatterbots, which has
attempted the Turing Test.

• Parry: Parry was a chatterbot created by Kenneth Colby in 1972. Parry was
designed to simulate a person with Paranoid schizophrenia(most common chronic
mental disorder). Parry was described as "ELIZA with attitude." Parry was tested
using a variation of the Turing Test in the early 1970s.

• Eugene Goostman: Eugene Goostman was a chatbot developed in Saint Petersburg

in 2001. This bot has competed in the various number of Turing Test. In June 2012,
at an event, Goostman won the competition promoted as largest-ever Turing test
content, in which it has convinced 29% of judges that it was a human. Goostman
resembled as a 13-year old virtual boy.
• There were many philosophers who really disagreed
with the complete concept of Artificial Intelligence.
The most famous argument in this list was "Chinese
Room." The Chinese Room Argument
• In the year 1980, John Searle presented "Chinese
Room" thought experiment, in his paper "Mind,
Brains, and Program," which was against the
validity of Turing's Test. According to his argument,
"Programming a computer may make it to
understand a language, but it will not produce a
real understanding of language or consciousness
in a computer."
• He argued that Machine such as ELIZA and Parry
could easily pass the Turing test by manipulating
keywords and symbol, but they had no real
understanding of language. So it cannot be
described as "thinking" capability of a machine such
as a human.
• To support his view, Searle describes a hypothetical system that is clearly running a program and
passes the Turing test, But that does not understand any thing of its inputs and outputs.
• His conclusion is that running the appropriate program is not a sufficient condition for being a mind.
• The system consists of a human(as CPU), who understands English but cannot understand any
Chinese. He is in a room with input and output windows, and a list of rules( as a program) about
manipulating Chinese characters. Chinese questions come in from the input window.
• Following the rules, he manipulates the characters and produces a reply, which he pushes through the
output window.
• The Chinese answers that a person in the room produces are very good. In fact, so good, no one can
tell that he is not a native Chinese speaker!
• Searle’s Chinese Room passes the Turing Test(Intelligence test).
• Searle then argues as follows :
• the person in the room does not understand Chinese(given). The rule book being just pieces of paper,
do not understand Chinese.
• Therefore, there is no understanding of Chinese. Hence, according to the Searle, running the right
program does not necessarily generate understanding.
 Features required for a machine to pass the Turing Test

• Natural language processing: NLP is required to communicate with Interrogator in

general human language like English.
• Knowledge representation: To store and retrieve information during the test.
• Automated reasoning: To use the previously stored information for answering the
questions.
• Machine learning: To adapt new changes and can detect generalized patterns.
• Vision (For total Turing test): To recognize the interrogator actions and other objects
during a test.
• Motor Control (For total Turing test): To act upon objects if requested.
 2. Thinking Humanly: Cognitive Modeling Approach

• 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:
• through introspection: catch our thoughts while they go by
• through psychological experiments: Observing a person in action and
• through brain imaging: Observing the brain in action.
• Once we have precise theory of mind, it is possible to express the theory as a computer
program.
• But unfortunately until up to now there is no precise theory about thinking process of
human brain. Therefore it is not possible to make the machine that think like human
brain.
 3. Think rationally: The laws of thought approach
• Aristotle was one of the first who attempt to codify the “ right thinking,” that is,
irrefutable reasoning processes.
• He gave Syllogisms that always yielded correct conclusion when correct premises are
given.
• Syllogism is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a
conclusion based on two or more propositions that are assumed to be true
• For example: – Ram is a man – All men are mortal – Ram is mortal
• These law of thought were supposed to govern the operation of mind:
• This study initiated the field of logic.
• The logic tradition in AI hopes to create intelligent systems using logic programming
• However there are two obstacles to this approach. First, It is not easy to take informal knowledge and
state in the formal terms required by logical notation, particularly when knowledge is not 100%
certain.
• Second, solving problem principally is different from doing it in practice. Even problems with certain
dozens of fact may exhaust the computational resources of any computer unless it has some guidance
as which reasoning step to try first
 4. Acting Rationally: The rational Agent approach
• Agent is something that acts. Computer agent is expected to have following attributes:
• Autonomous control
• Perceiving their environment
• Persisting over a prolonged period of time
• Adapting to change
• And capable of taking on another’s goal.
• Rational behavior: doing the right thing.
• The right thing: that which is expected to maximize goal achievement, given the available
information.
• 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 given to 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 and act on that conclusion.
• On the other hand, there are also some ways of acting rationally that cannot be said to involve
inference.
• For Example, recoiling from a hot stove is a reflex action that usually more successful than a
slower action taken after careful deliberation.
Types of AI
 AI Type 1 – Based on Capabilities
1. Weak AI or Narrow AI:
• Narrow AI is a type of AI which is able to perform a dedicated task with intelligence. The most common and
currently available AI is Narrow AI in the world of Artificial Intelligence.
• Narrow AI cannot perform beyond its field or limitations, as it is only trained for one specific task. Hence it is also
termed as weak AI. Narrow AI can fail in unpredictable ways if it goes beyond its limits.
• Apple Siriis a good example of Narrow AI, but it operates with a limited pre-defined range of functions.
• Some Examples of Narrow AI are playing chess, purchasing suggestions on e-commerce site, self-driving cars,
speech recognition, and image recognition.

2. General AI:
• General AI is a type of intelligence which could perform any intellectual task with efficiency like a human.
• The idea behind the general AI to make such a system which could be smarter and think like a human by its
own.
• Currently, there is no such system exist which could come under general AI and can perform any task as
perfect as a human.
• The worldwide researchers are now focused on developing machines with General AI.
• As systems with general AI are still under research, and it will take lots of efforts and time to develop such
systems.
3. Strong AI / Super AI:
• Super AI is a level of Intelligence of Systems at which machines could surpass human
intelligence, and can perform any task better than human with cognitive properties. It is an
outcome of general AI.
• Some key characteristics of strong AI include capability include the ability to think, to reason,
solve the puzzle, make judgments, plan, learn, and communicate by its own.
• Super AI is still a hypothetical concept of Artificial Intelligence. Development of such systems
in real is still world changing task.
 AI Type 2 – Based on Functionalities
1. Reactive Machines
• Purely reactive machines are the most basic types of Artificial Intelligence.
• Such AI systems do not store memories or past experiences for future actions.
• These machines only focus on current scenarios and react on it as per possible best action.
• IBM's Deep Blue system is an example of reactive machines.
• Google's AlphaGo is also an example of reactive machines.

2. Limited Memory
• Limited memory machines can store past experiences or some data for a short period of time.
• These machines can use stored data for a limited time period only.
• Self-driving cars are one of the best examples of Limited Memory systems. These cars can store recent
speed of nearby cars, the distance of other cars, speed limit, and other information to navigate the road.
3. Theory of Mind:
• Theory of Mind AI should understand the human emotions, people, beliefs, and be able to interact
socially like humans.
• This type of AI machines are still not developed, but researchers are making lots of efforts and
improvement for developing such AI machines.

4. Self-Awareness
• Self-awareness AI is the future of Artificial Intelligence. These machines will be super intelligent,
and will have their own consciousness, sentiments, and self-awareness.
• These machines will be smarter than human mind.
• Self-Awareness AI does not exist in reality still and it is a hypothetical concept.
Applications of AI
 Omniscience

• Omniscience is the condition of having infinite knowledge of everything conceivable.

Certain interpretations of the theological underpinnings draw the conclusion that God
possesses omniscience. Even if you don't believe in God, you may still draw parallels to
other hypothetically powerful creatures in this topic. The intended meaning is total
comprehension. There are numerous possible types of knowledge a being may possess,
thus it's not accurate to assert that it knows everything. Truth claims and propositions are
two types of knowledge.
• Being omniscient means that God is fully aware of every possible outcome. This implies
that God is aware of not just the present but also the future. A master chess player, for
instance, displays omniscience by anticipating all of their opponent's moves, although
every move has potential responses. The only being with the power to know all there is to
know is God, who possesses omniscience
 Aspect AI (Artificial Intelligence) Omniscience
Simulation of human intelligence by
Definition Supposed possession of complete knowledge
machines

Nature Human-made technology Philosophical or religious concept

Knowledge Scope Limited by data and algorithms Absolute and all-encompassing knowledge

Source of
Learns from data and experiences Inherent or divine knowledge
Knowledge
Achievability Achievable and continuously improving Considered a supernatural attribute

Examples Virtual assistants, self-driving cars, games Often attributed to deities in religions

Application Solving specific tasks in specific domains Pertains to the realm of theology and belief

Boundaries Operates within defined algorithms and data Transcends human limitations

Time Dimension Operates in the present and based on history Extends across past, present, and future