INTRODUCTION TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

What is intelligence?

The ability of a system to calculate, reason, perceive relationships and analogies, learn from
experience, store and retrieve information from memory, solve problems, comprehend complex
ideas, use natural language fluently, classify, generalize, and adapt new situations.

Types of Intelligence

As described by Howard Gardner, an American developmental psychologist, the Intelligence

comes in multifold:

 Linguistic intelligence - The ability to speak, recognize, and use mechanisms of phonology
(speech sounds), syntax (grammar), and semantics (meaning). e.g Narrators, Orators

 Musical intelligence - The ability to create, communicate with, and understand meanings
made of sound, understanding of pitch, rhythm. e.g Musicians, Singers, Composers

 Logical-mathematical intelligence - The ability of use and understand relationships in the

absence of action or objects. Understanding complex and abstract ideas. e.g Mathematicians,
Scientists
 Spatial intelligence - The ability to perceive visual or spatial information, change it, and re-
create visual images without reference to the objects, construct 3D images, and to move and
rotate them. e.g Map readers, Astronauts, Physicists
 Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence - The ability to use complete or part of the body to solve
problems or fashion products, control over fine and coarse motor skills, and manipulate the
objects e.g Players, Dancers
 Intra-personal intelligence - The ability to distinguish among one’s own feelings,
intentions, and motivations.
 Interpersonal intelligence - The ability to recognize and make distinctions among other
people’s feelings, beliefs, and intentions. e.g Mass Communicators, Interviewers.

COMPONENTS OF INTELLIGENCE
The intelligence is intangible. It is composed of:
 Reasoning
 Learning
 Problem Solving
 Perception
 Linguistic Intelligence

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1. Reasoning: It is the set of processes that enables us to provide basis for judgement, making
decisions, and prediction. There are broadly two types: There are broadly two types
deductive and inductive reasoning:
Deductive reasoning
It starts with a general statement and
examines the possibilities to reach a
specific, logical conclusion.
Deductive reasoning starts with an
understanding of a general principle, then
special cases help support that principle
In the process of deduction, you begin with
some statements, called “premises,” that
are assumed to be true, you then determine
what else would have to be true if the
premises are true.
If something is true of a class of things in
general, it is also true for all members of
that class.
Examples:
Premise: All insects have exactly six legs
Premise: Spiders have eight legs
Conclusion: Therefore, spiders are not
insects.
Premise: Bachelors are unmarried men.
Premise: Bill is unmarried.
Conclusion: Therefore, Bill is a bachelor.
Notes prepared by Peninah J. Limo
Inductive reasoning
It conducts specific observations to makes
broad general statements.
Inductive reasoning works the other way
around, where a special case which is
observed first, which leads to the eventual
understanding of a general principle
In the process of induction, you begin with
some data, and then determine what
general conclusion(s) can logically be
derived from those data. In other words,
you determine what theory or theories
could explain the data.
Even if all of the premises are true in a
statement, inductive reasoning allows for
the conclusion to be false.
Example:
Observation: Pet dogs in my
neighborhood are friendly.
Observe a pattern: All observed dogs are
friendly.
Theory: All dogs are friendly.
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2. Learning: It is the activity of gaining knowledge or skill by studying, practising, being
taught, or experiencing something. Learning enhances the awareness of the subjects of the
study. The ability of learning is possessed by humans, some animals, and AI-enabled
systems. Learning is categorized as:
 Auditory Learning: It is learning by listening and hearing. For example, students
listening to recorded audio lectures.
 Episodic Learning: To learn by remembering sequences of events that one has
witnessed or experienced. This is linear and orderly.
 Motor Learning: It is learning by precise movement of muscles. For example, picking
objects, Writing, etc.
 Observational Learning: To learn by watching and imitating others. For example, child
tries to learn by mimicking her parent.
 Perceptual Learning: It is learning to recognize stimuli that one has seen before. For
example, identifying and classifying objects and situations.
 Relational Learning: It involves learning to differentiate among various stimuli on the
basis of relational properties, rather than absolute properties. For Example, Adding ‘little
less’ salt at the time of cooking potatoes that came up salty last time, when cooked with
adding say a tablespoon of salt.
 Spatial learning: It is learning through visual stimuli such as images, colors, maps, etc.
For Example, A person can create roadmap in mind before actually following the road.
 Stimulus-Response Learning: It is learning to perform a particular behavior when a
certain stimulus is present. For example, a dog raises its ear on hearing doorbell.

3. Problem solving: It is the process in which one perceives and tries to arrive at a desired
solution from a present situation by taking some path, which is blocked by known or unknown
hurdles.
Problem solving also includes decision making, which is the process of selecting the best
suitable alternative out of multiple alternatives to reach the desired goal are available.
4. Perception: It is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory
information.
Perception presumes sensing. In humans, perception is aided by sensory organs. In the domain
of AI, perception mechanism puts the data acquired by the sensors together in a meaningful
manner.
5. Linguistic Intelligence: It is one’s ability to use, comprehend, speak, and write the verbal and
written language. It is important in interpersonal communication.

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 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of Science which deals with helping machines finding
solutions to complex problems in a more human-like fashion. This generally involves borrowing
characteristics from human intelligence, and applying them as algorithms in a computer friendly
way. A more or less flexible or efficient approach can be taken depending on the requirements
established, which influences how artificial the intelligent behaviour appears.
AI is generally associated with Computer Science, but it has many important links with other fields
such as Maths, Psychology, Cognition, Biology and Philosophy, among many others. Our ability
to combine knowledge from all these fields will ultimately benefit our progress in the quest of
creating an intelligent artificial being.
AI currently encompasses a huge variety of subfields, from general-purpose areas such as
perception and logical reasoning, to specific tasks such as playing chess, proving mathematical
theorems, writing poetry, and diagnosing diseases. Often, scientists in other fields move gradually
into artificial intelligence, where they find the tools and vocabulary to systematize and
automate the intellectual tasks on which they have been working all their lives. Similarly,
workers in AI can choose to apply their methods to any area of human intellectual endeavour. In
this sense, it is truly a universal field.
HISTORY OF AI
The origin of artificial intelligence lies in the earliest days of machine computations. During the
1940s and 1950s, AI begins to grow with the emergence of the modern computer. Among the
first researchers to attempt to build intelligent programs were Newell and Simon. Their first well
known program, logic theorist, was a program that proved statements using the accepted rules of
logic and a problem solving program of their own design. By the late fifties, programs existed
that could do a passable job of translating technical documents and it was seen as only a matter
of extra databases and more computing power to apply the techniques to less formal, more
ambiguous texts. Most problem solving work revolved around the work of Newell, Shaw and
Simon, on the general problem solver (GPS). Unfortunately the GPS did not fulfill its promise
and did not because of some simple lack of computing capacity.
In the 1970’s the most important concept of AI was developed known as Expert System which
exhibits as a set rules the knowledge of an expert. The application area of expert system is very
large. The 1980’s saw the development of neural networks as a method learning examples.Prof.
Peter Jackson (University of Edinburgh) classified the history of AI into three periods as:
1. Classical
2. Romantic
3. Modern
1. Classical Period:
It was started from 1950. In 1956, the concept of Artificial Intelligence came into existance.
During this period, the main research work carried out includes game plying, theorem proving
and concept of state space approach for solving a problem.

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2. Romantic Period:
It was started from the mid 1960 and continues until the mid 1970. During this period people
were interested in making machine understand, that is usually mean the understanding of natural
language. During this period the knowledge representation technique “semantic net” was
developed.
3. Modern Period:
It was started from 1970 and continues to the present day. This period was developed to solve
more complex problems. This period includes the research on both theories and practical aspects
of Artificial Intelligence. This period includes the birth of concepts like Expert system, Artificial
Neurons, Pattern Recognition etc. The research of the various advanced concepts of Pattern
Recognition and Neural Network are still going on.

Definition of Artificial intelligence

1. AI is the study of how to make computers do things which at the moment people do better.
This is ephemeral as it refers to the current state of computer science and it excludes a major
area ; problems that cannot be solved well either by computers or by people at the moment.
2. AI is a field of study that encompasses computational techniques for performing tasks that
apparently require intelligence when performed by humans.
3. AI is the branch of computer science that is concerned with the automation of intelligent
behaviour. AI is based upon the principles of computer science namely data structures used
in knowledge representation, the algorithms needed to apply that knowledge and the
languages and programming techniques used in their implementation.
4. AI is the field of study that seeks to explain and emulate intelligent behaviour in terms of
computational processes.
5. AI is about generating representations and procedures that automatically or autonomously
solve problems heretofore solved by humans.
6. AI is the part of computer science concerned with designing intelligent computer systems,
that is, computer systems that exhibit the characteristics we associate with intelligence in
human behaviour such as understanding language, learning, reasoning and solving problems.
7. AI is the study of mental faculties through the use of computational models.
8. AI is the study of the computations that make it possible to perceive, reason, and act.
9. AI is the exciting new effort to make computers think machines with minds, in the full and
literal sense.
10. AI is concerned with developing computer systems that can store knowledge and effectively
use the knowledge to help solve problems and accomplish tasks. This brief statement sounds
a lot like one of the commonly accepted goals in the education of humans. We want students
to learn (gain knowledge) and to learn to use this knowledge to help solve problems and
accomplish tasks.

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The above definitions give us four possible goals to pursue in artificial intelligence:
 Systems that think like humans
 Systems that act like humans
 Systems that think rationally. ( A system is rational if it does the right thing.)
 Systems that act rationally

(a) Acting humanly : The Turing Test approach

Acting humanly takes the Turing test approach (“Computing machinery”,1950). As part of
argument, Alan Turing 1912-1954 advanced the idea of an “imitation game” in which a human
being and a computer are interrogated under conditions where the interrogator does not know
which is which e.g the human being and the computer are kept in two separate, closed-door
rooms and communication with the interrogator is entirely done by the exchange of textual
messages.
Turing argued that if the interrogator could not distinguish between human and computer
intelligence by questioning then it would be reasonable to call the computer intelligent.

Programming a computer to pass ,the computer need to possess the following capabilities :

 Natural language processing to enable it to communicate successfully in English.

 Knowledge representation to store what it knows or hears
 Automated reasoning to use the stored information to answer questions and to draw new
conclusions.
 Machine learning to adapt to new circumstances and to detect and extrapolate patterns

To pass the complete Turing Test,the computer will need

 Computer vision to perceive the objects,and

 Robotics to manipulate objects and move about.

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The aim of this approach is:

 The art of creating machines that perform function requiring intelligence when performed
by people; That is the study of how to make machines do things which at the moment
people do better.
 Focus is on action not on intelligent behavior centered around representation of the
world.
 A behavioral approach, is not concerned with how to get the results but to the similarity
to what human results are.

(b) Thinking humanly : The cognitive modeling approach:

Thinking humanly is to make a system or program to think like a human. But to achieve that, we
need to know how does a human thinks.

Thinking humanly takes the cognitive modeling approach which gets inside the actual workings
of the human mind. Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig say, there are two ways to do this:

1. Introspection method– Catch our thoughts and see how it flows.

2. psychological inspection method- Observe a person on the action.

Using the above methods, if we are able to catch the human brain’s actions and give it as a
theory, then we can convert that theory into a computer program. If the input/output of the
computer program matches with human behavior, then it may be possible that a part of the
program may be behaving like a human brain.

Allen Newell and Herbert Simon developed the General Problem Solver (GPS) program to
model human thinking and check whether it can solve problems like a person by following the
same reasoning steps as a human. The intent of the program is not just to solve the problem
correctly but to go through the same series of steps as that of a human brain to solve it.

Thinking human goal is to develop modern computational models and intelligent devices to think
like a human and those models help humans to solve complex problems.

The aim of this approach is:

 making computers think; That is, the machine with minds, in full and literal sense.
 Focus is not on behaviour and I/O, but looks at reasoning process.
 Aims to develop, explore and evaluate theories of how the human mind work through the
use of environment models.
 It explore how things are done but not what is done. This means intelligent behaviour is
not enough, the program must operate in an intelligent manner.

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  The goal is not just to produce human-like behaviour but to produce a sequence of steps
of the reasoning process, similar to the steps followed by a human in solving the same
task.

Examples: The chess program can play chess but know little about how human being play chess.

Assignment: Compare similarities or differences between AI techniques and human cognition.

(c) Thinking rationally : The “laws of thought approach”

The Greek philosopher Aristotle was one of the first to attempt to codify ``right thinking,''
reasoning processes. His famous syllogisms provided patterns for argument structures that
always gave correct conclusions given correct premises. A famous example,
``Socrates is a man; all men are mortal; therefore Socrates is mortal.''

These laws of thought were supposed to govern the operation of the mind, and initiated the field
of logic.
In the syllogisms, the Laws of Thought play a vital role because these give law the right
explanation of a syllogistic inference. There are three Laws of Thought recognized by the
logicians. These have traditionally been called the law of Identity, the law of Contradiction, and
the law of Excluded–Middle. These Laws of Thought are appropriate to different contexts. The
formulations appropriate as follows:
a) The law of Identity asserts that if any statement is true, then it is true. This law asserts
that every statement of the form P ⊃ P is true, and that every such statement is a tautology.

b) The law of Contradiction asserts that no statement can be both true and false. This law
asserts that every statement of the form P . ∼P is false, that is, every such statement is self-
contradictory, and its negation is logically true.

c) The law of Excluded-Middle asserts that any statement is either true or false. This law
asserts that every statement of the form P ∨ ∼P is true, that is, every such statement is a tautology.

The aim of this approach is threefold:

 Focus on inference mechanism that are probably correct and guarantee an optimal
solution.
 Develop systems of representation to allow inferences to be like "Rose is a Computer
science student. All computer science students are programmers, Therefore Rose is a
Programmer".

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  The issue is, not all problems can be solved by just reasoning and inference. The goal is
to formalize the reasoning process as a system of logical rules and procedures for
inference.

(d) Acting rationally : The rational agent approach

A traditional computer program blindly executes the code that we write. Neither it acts on its
own nor it adapts to change itself based on the outcome. The so-called agent program is expected
to do more than the traditional computer program. It is expected to create and pursue the goal,
change state, and operate autonomously. A rational agent is one that acts so as to achieve the best
outcome or, when there is uncertainty, the best expected outcome.

The “Logical Approach” to AI emphasizes correct inferences and achieving a correct inference is
a part of the rational agent. Being able to give a logical reason is one way of acting
rationally. But all correct inferences cannot be called rationality, because there are situations that
don’t always have a correct thing to do. It is also possible to act rationally without involving
inferences. Our reflex actions are considered as best examples of acting rationally without
inferences.

The aim of this approach is:

 Tries to explain and emulate intelligent behavior in terms of computational processes;

that is it is concerned with the automation of intelligence.
 Focus on systems that act sufficiently if not optimally in all situations.
 It is passable to have imperfect reasoning if the job gets done.
 Goal is to develop systems that are rational and sufficient.

TYPES OF AI

AI technologies are categorised by their capacity to mimic human characteristics, the technology
they use to do this, their real-world applications, and the theory of mind. Using these
characteristics for reference, all artificial intelligence systems - real and hypothetical - fall into
one of three types:

 Artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), which has a narrow range of abilities;

 Artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is on par with human capabilities; or
 Artificial superintelligence (ASI), which is more capable than a human.

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 1. Artificial narrow intelligence (ANI)

Artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), also referred to as weak AI or narrow AI, is the only type of
artificial intelligence we have successfully realized to date. Narrow AI is goal-oriented, designed
to perform singular tasks - i.e. facial recognition, speech recognition/voice assistants, driving a
car, or searching the internet - and is very intelligent at completing the specific task it is
programmed to do.

While these machines may seem intelligent, they operate under a narrow set of constraints and
limitations, which is why this type is commonly referred to as weak AI. Narrow AI doesn’t
mimic or replicate human intelligence, it merely simulates human behaviour based on a narrow
range of parameters and contexts.

Narrow AI has experienced numerous breakthroughs in the last decade, powered by

achievements in machine learning and deep learning. For example, AI systems today are used in
medicine to diagnose cancer and other diseases with extreme accuracy through replication of
human-esque cognition and reasoning.

Narrow AI’s machine intelligence comes from the use of natural language processing (NLP) to
perform tasks. NLP is evident in chatbots and similar AI technologies. By understanding speech
and text in natural language, AI is programmed to interact with humans in a natural, personalised
manner.

Examples of narrow AI:

 Google Search
 Siri by Apple, Alexa by Amazon, Cortana by Microsoft and other virtual assistants
 IBM’s Watson
 Image / facial recognition software
 Disease mapping and prediction tools
 Manufacturing and drone robots
 Email spam filters / social media monitoring tools for dangerous content
 Entertainment or marketing content recommendations based on watch/listen/purchase
behaviour
 Self-driving cars

2. Artificial general intelligence (AGI)

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Artificial general intelligence (AGI), also referred to as strong AI or deep AI, is the concept of a
machine with general intelligence that mimics human intelligence and/or behaviours, with the
ability to learn and apply its intelligence to solve any problem. AGI can think, understand, and
act in a way that is indistinguishable from that of a human in any given situation.

AI researchers and scientists have not yet achieved strong AI. To succeed, they would need to
find a way to make machines conscious, programming a full set of cognitive abilities. Machines
would have to take experiential learning to the next level, not just improving efficiency on
singular tasks, but gaining the ability to apply experiential knowledge to a wider range of
different problems.

Fujitsu-built K, one of the fastest supercomputers, is one of the most notable attempts at
achieving strong AI, but considering it took 40 minutes to simulate a single second of neural
activity, it is difficult to determine whether or not strong AI will be achieved in our foreseeable
future.

3. Artificial superintelligence (ASI)

Artificial super intelligence (ASI), is the hypothetical AI that doesn’t just mimic or understand
human intelligence and behaviour; ASI is where machines become self-aware and surpass the
capacity of human intelligence and ability.

In addition to replicating the multi-faceted intelligence of human beings, ASI would theoretically
be exceedingly better at everything we do; math, science, sports, art, medicine, hobbies,
emotional relationships, everything. ASI would have a greater memory and a faster ability to
process and analyse data and stimuli. Consequently, the decision-making and problem solving
capabilities of super intelligent beings would be far superior than those of human beings.

APPLICATION OF AI
AI has been dominant in various fields such as:
1. Gaming - AI plays crucial role in strategic games such as chess, poker, tic-tac-toe, etc.,
where machine can think of large number of possible positions based on heuristic knowledge.
2. Natural Language Processing -It is possible to interact with the computer that understands
natural language spoken by humans.
3. Expert Systems - There are some applications which integrate machine, software, and
special information to impact reasoning and advising. They provide explanation and advice
to the users.
4. Vision Systems -These systems understand, interpret, and comprehend visual input on the
computer. For example,

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  A spying aeroplane takes photographs which are used to figure out spatial
information or map of the areas.
 Police use computer software that can recognize the face of criminal with the stored
portrait made by forensic artist
5. Speech Recognition - Some intelligent systems are capable of hearing and comprehending
the language in terms of sentences and their meanings while a human talks to it. It can handle
different accents, slang words, noise in the background, change in human’s noise due to cold,
etc.
6. Handwriting Recognition The handwriting recognition software reads the text written on
paper by a pen or on screen by a stylus. It can recognize the shapes of the letters and convert
it into editable text.
7. Intelligent Robots - Robots are able to perform the tasks given by a human. They have
sensors to detect physical data from the real world such as light, heat, temperature,
movement, sound, bump, and pressure. They have efficient processors, multiple sensors and
huge memory, to exhibit intelligence. In addition, they are capable of learning from their
mistakes and they can adapt to the new environment.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Advantages

1. High Accuracy with less errors: AI machines or systems are prone to less errors and high
accuracy as it takes decisions as per pre-experience or information.
2. High-Speed: AI systems can be of very high-speed and fast-decision making, because of that
AI systems can beat a chess champion in the Chess game.
3. High reliability: AI machines are highly reliable and can perform the same action multiple
times with high accuracy.
4. Useful for risky areas: AI machines can be helpful in situations such as defusing a bomb,
exploring the ocean floor, where to employ a human can be risky.
5. Digital Assistant: AI can be very useful to provide digital assistant to the users such as AI
technology is currently used by various E-commerce websites to show the products as per
customer requirement.
6. Useful as a public utility: AI can be very useful for public utilities such as a self-driving car
which can make our journey safer and hassle-free, facial recognition for security purpose,
Natural language processing to communicate with the human in human-language, etc.

Disadvantages

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Every technology has some disadvantages, and the same goes for Artificial intelligence. Being so
advantageous technology still, it has some disadvantages which we need to keep in our mind while
creating an AI system. Following are the disadvantages of AI:

1. High Cost: The hardware and software requirement of AI is very costly as it requires lots of
maintenance to meet current world requirements.
2. Can't think out of the box: Even we are making smarter machines with AI, but still they
cannot work out of the box, as the robot will only do that work for which they are trained, or
programmed.
3. No feelings and emotions: AI machines can be an outstanding performer, but still it does not
have the feeling so it cannot make any kind of emotional attachment with human, and may
sometime be harmful for users if the proper care is not taken.
4. Increase dependency on machines: With the increment of technology, people are getting
more dependent on devices and hence they are losing their mental capabilities.
5. No Original Creativity: As humans are so creative and can imagine some new ideas but still
AI machines cannot beat this power of human intelligence and cannot be creative and
imaginative.

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