Artificial Intelligence

Introduction to AI

Dr. Muhammad Awais

Software Engineering, GCUF Chapter 1 1

 Outline
• What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
• Foundation of AI
• History of AI
• Stat of Art
• Summary

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 What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
• Definitions
• Turing Test approach
• Cognitive modeling approach
• Thinking rationally
• Acting rationally

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 Definitions
• Systems that think like humans
• Systems that think rationally
• Systems that act like humans
• Systems that act rationally

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 Think human
• “The exciting new effort to make computers think…
machines with minds, in the full and literal sense”
(Haugeland, 1985)
• “The automation of activities that we associate with
human thinking, activities such as decision/making,
problem solving, learning …” (Bellman, 1978)
• Cognitive modeling
• An approximation to animal cognitive processes (predominantly
human) for the purposes of comprehension and prediction
• A cognitive process corresponds to a mental process that may
include attention, memory, producing and
understanding language, learning, reasoning, problem solving,
and decision making.

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 Act human
• “The art of creating machines that perform
functions that require intelligence when performed
by people.” (Kurzweil, 1990)

• The study of how to make computers do things at

which, at the moment, people are better (Rich and
Knight, 1991)

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 Act human: Turing test
• Predicted that by 2000, a machine might have a 30%
chance of fooling a lay person for 5 minutes
• Anticipated all major arguments against AI in following
50 years
• Suggested major components of AI: knowledge,
reasoning, language understanding, learning
• Requirement of Turing test
– Natural language processing
– Knowledge representation
– Automated reasoning
– Machine learning
– Computer vision
– Robotics

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 Think rational
• “The study of mental faculties (abilities) through
the use of computation models.” (Charniak and
McDermott, 1985)
• “The study of computations that make it possible
to perceive, reason, and act.” (Winston, 1992)
• Think-rational initiated the field of Logic
(irrefutable reasoning)
Example:
“Socrates is a man;
All men are mortal;
Therefore, Socrates is mortal” (Syllogisms : inference of an
output (proposition : a declarative sentence) from two or
inputs (premises)
Software Engineering, GCUF Chapter 1 8
 Act rational
• “Computational Intelligence is the study of the
design of intelligent agents.” (Poole et al., 1990)

• “AI … is concerned with intelligent behavior in

artifacts”(robots). (Nilsson, 1998)

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 Act rational
• Agent : Not a mere computer program but
• Autonomous operation
• Environment perception
• Adaption, etc

1. Best outcome in certain

environment
2. Best expected outcome in
uncertain environment

Perception Re/Action
Environment Environment

Nao: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nao_(robot)
Software Engineering, GCUF Chapter 1 10
 Definitions

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 Foundation of AI
• Philosophical contributions
• Mathematics
• Economics
• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Computer engineering
• Control theory and Cybernetics
• Linguistics

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 Philosophical contributions
• Questions
• How does the mental mind arise from a physical brain ?
• Where does knowledge come from ?
• How does knowledge lead to action ?
• Contributions
• Aristotle : Formulation of set of laws, e.g., syllogisms
• A syllogism is a form of logical reasoning that joins two or more
premises to arrive at a conclusion
• Premises : All men are mortal
• Premises : Aristotle is a man
• Conclusion : Aristotle is mortal
.
• Thomas Hobes : Reasoning by numerical computation
.
• Leonardo
. da Vinci : Design of a mechanical calculator

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Philosophical contributions

• Dualism
– part of the human mind (or soul or spirit) that is outside of nature, exempt from
physical laws
• Materialism
– Brain’s operation according to the laws of physics constitutes the mind.
– Free will is simply the way that the perception of available choices appears to the
choosing entity
• Empiricism
– Nothing is in the understanding, which was not first in the senses.”
• Induction
– General rules are acquired by exposure to repeated associations between their
elements

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 Mathematical contributions
• Questions
• What are the formal rules to draw valid conclusions ?
• What can be computed ?
• How does we reason with uncertain information ?
• How does knowledge lead to action ?
• Contributions
• Euclid`s algorithm : Greatest common denominators computation
• David Hilbert : Proposition of problem for mathematicians
• Kurt Goedel : Incompleteness theorem (statements whose truth
can not be established by an algorithm)
• Cobham, Edmonds : Notion of Intractability (time to solve grows
exponentially with the size of problem instance)
• Steven Cook, Richard Karp : NP-completeness (Non deterministic
polynomial time)
• Fermat, Pascal, Bernoulli, Laplace,… : Probability
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 Economics contributions
• Questions
• so as to How should we make decisions to maximize payoff ?
• How should we do this when other may not go along ?
• How should we do this when the payoff is far in the future ?
• Contributions
• Leon Walras : Utility (preference of A over B)
• Pascal, Bernoulli : Decision theory (utility theory +
probability theory )
• Richard Bellman : Markov Decision Process (MDP)
.
.
.

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 Neuroscience contributions
• Questions
• How do brains process information ?
• Contributions
• Paul Brocas : speech production in left hemisphere (Broca’s area)
• Hans Berger : Measurement of intact brain activity
• Camillo Golgi : Observation of individual neurons

.
.
.

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 Psychology contributions
• Questions
• How do humans and animal think and act ?
• Contributions
• Hermann von Helmholtz : study of human vision (Physiological
Optics)
• H. S. Jennings : Behavior of the lower organisms
• Wlliam James,… : Cognitive psychology (View of brain as
information-processing device)
• MIT workshop (G. Miller, N. Chomsky, A. Newell and H. Simon) :
Cognitive Science (study of mind and its process) (Computer
modeling of psychology of memory, language and logical
thinking)
.
.
.

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 Computer engineering contributions
• Questions
• How can we build an efficient computer ?
• Contributions
• Alan Turing team : First operation computer (Deciphering of
German messages)
• Konarad Zuse : First operation programmable computer, Z-3
• John Atanasoff : First electronic computer (ENIAC)
• Joseph Marie Jacquard : First programmable machine (Loom)
using punch cards

.
.
.

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 Control theory and Cybernetics contributions

• Questions
• How can artifacts operate under their own control ?
• Contributions
• Ktesibios of Alexandia : First self-controlling machine
• James Watt : Steam engine governor
• Wiener, Warren, Pitts, John von Neumann : Cybernetics
(Scientific study of control and communication in the animal
and the machine)
• Modern Control Theory : stochastic optimal control that
maximizes the objective function over time
.
.
.

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 History of AI
• Conception of AI
• Birth of AI
• Early enthusiasm and expectations
• Problems in reality
• Knowledge based Systems
• AI as Industry
• Neural networks
• AI as Science
• Intelligent agents

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 Conception of AI
• Recognition of Warren and Walter’s work as first
work in of AI (proposition of artificial neurons)
• Knowledge of basic physicology
• Function of neurons in brain
• Formal analysis of propositional logic
• Update of connection strengths between neurons
(Hebbian learning)
• First neural network computer (Minsky, Edmonds)
• Articulation of vision of AI (Computing Machinery
and Intelligence by Alan Turing)

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 Birth of AI
• McCarthy, Minsky, Claude Shannon organized
workshops on automata, neural nets, and study of
intelligence
• No break through, just introduction of concerned
people with each other AND renaming of the field as
Artificial Intelligence
• Reasons for evolving AI as new field
• Duplication of human abilities
• Creativity
• self-improvement

• Methodology (branch of Computer Science)

• Aims to build autonomous machines for complex
and changing environments
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 Early enthusiasm and expectations
• General Problem Solver (GPS) by Newell and Simon
• Limited human thinking capability
• A series of programs for checkers with learning
capabilities
• Demonstration on television in February 1956
• Definition of High-level language LISP by McCarthy
• Minsky supervised projects known as microworlds
• Rearrangements of the blocks on table by the
robotic hand

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 Problems in reality
• Prediction concerning the future of AI
• Computers as chess champions in next 10 years
• Achieved in after 40 years
• Robot football team versus World champions till 2050
• (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Football)

• …
• No background knowledge about problem domain
• Intractability of the problems to be solved
• Fundamental limitations on the basic structures for
intelligent behavior
• Combinatorial explosions

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 Knowledge based Systems
• Weak methods for solving AI problems
• General but do not scale up for problems
• Large
• Difficult

• Expert System designed with specific knowledge

from the human expert concerning the field
• Expert systems examples
• Accounting
• Law
• Medicine
• process control, etc
• First neural network computer (Minsky, Edmonds)

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 AI as Science
• Building on existing theories
• Why ?
• Come up with new theories
• Prove the theory on all challenging grounds
• Theatrical
• Mathematical
• Applicable
• Feasible, etc

• Some existing theories concerning AI

• Hidden Markov Models (HMM)
• Data mining
• Bayesian networks etc

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 Intelligent agents
• Mobile robots
• Pioneer

• Humanoids
• Asimo by Honda
• Nao

• Industrial robots
• Marine robots, etc

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 State of Art
• Autonomous planning and scheduling
• Game Playing
• Autonomous control
• Diagnosis
• Image Processing
• Medical Image processing
• Computer vision etc
• Logistics Planning
• Robotics
• Language understanding etc

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 Summary
• Foundation of AI
• History of AI
• Stat of Art

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