Topics:
- Defining AI
- What is AI about?
- What is an agent?
- What are agent environments?
- What is working in AI like?
The Dartmouth Workshop---1956
"It is not my aim to surprise you or shock you---but the simplest way I can
summarize is to say that there are now in the world machines that can think,
that learn, and create. Moreover, their ability to do these things is going
to increase rapidly until---in the visible future---the range of problems
they can handle will be coextensive with the range to which human mind has
been applied."
Herb Simon, 1957
Defining AI
Handbook of AI: "the part of computer science concerned with designing
intelligent computer systems, that is, systems that exhibit the
characteristics we associate with intelligence in human behavior:
understanding language, learning, reasoning, solving problems, and so on."
Rich and Knight: "the study of how to make computers do things which, at
the moment, people do better."
Systems that think like humans (e.g. Cog)
Systems that act like humans (e.g. Turing's test)
Systems that think rationally (e.g. Deep Blue)
Systems that act rationally (e.g. Robots)
What is intelligence?
Tasks demonstrating intelligence are those that people do well: vision,
recognizing voices, writing, communicating, moving in the world.
Common problem: brittle systems that can't cope well with uncertaintly.
(inchworm, apple newton, Dante robot, Eliza examples.)
Intelligence = problem solving ability
Systems that think like humans (e.g. Cog)
Systems that think rationally (e.g. Theorem provers)
Intelligence = ability to act humaly
Systems that act like humans (e.g. Turing's test)
Systems that act rationally (e.g. Deep blue)
Turing Test
- Interrogator asks questions of two "people" who are out of site
and hearing. One is a person; the other is a computer.
- 30 minutes to ask whatever he or she wants.
- Task: to determine only through answers which is which.
- If it can't reliably distinguish the human from the computer, then the
computer is deemed intelligent.
Artificial Intelligence is about constructing an artifact that can pass
the Turing test.
Objections to the Turing test:
- it is as much the test of the judge as it is of its machine.
- excludes physical aspects.
What is AI about?
- search: playing games, planning problems, etc.
- knowledge representation and inference: login,theorem proving,truth maintenance systems, etc.
- perception, action, and understanding: vision,robotics,NLP
What is an intelligent agent?
Anything that can perceive its environment through sensors and act
through effectors.
- How do agents work?
- What are agents made of?
- How do agents communicate?
- Can agents have wishes?
- Can agents have feelings or emotions?
Where do agents operate?
- Virtual vs. physical world
- Static vs. dynamic
- Discrete vs. continuous
- Deterministic vs. non-deterministic
- Accessible vs. non-accessible
What is working in AI like?
- Cool but hard problems
- Part of the work is coming up with the right representation
- Often draws heavily on other areas
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