Introduction to Artificial

Intelligence
What is AI?
 AI definition
 is the study of how to make computers do things
which, at the moment, people do better.
Elaine Rich, 1991

is a branch of computer science and engineering

that deals with intelligent behaviour, learning, and
adaptation in machines.
Wikipedia
What is Intelligence?
 Intelligence is the ability to understand and learn things.

 Intelligence is the ability to think and understand instead

of doing things by instinct or automatically.
(Essential English Dictionary, Collins, London, 1990).

 Intelligence is the ability to learn and understand, to solve

problems and to make decisions.

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What is AI?
 What is intelligence?
 Understanding languages
 Automated reasoning
 Usually require knowledge
What is AI?
 Argument: Computers can’t be intelligent

 To many people, computers are highly proactive,

as they associate with intelligence
 Self-awareness: being conscious of one’s own

existence
 Intentionality: having the intention of doing

something, to achieve some goal

What is AI?
 Argument: Computers can’t be intelligent

 Computers can play strong games, and a

chimpanzee can play poor games?
 There are non-intelligent ways to achieve

intelligent tasks
What is AI?

 Machine intelligence: what computers can do

 Where a computer is used to accomplish tasks

which, were it to be done by human, would
require intelligence
What is AI?

 System

 Think/act like human

 Think/act rationally (or do the right thing)

 What is AI?
 Several attempts to understand how do minds work for thousands of years.

 Goal of Artificial Intelligence: Not only to understand how does mind

work? but also how to build intelligent entities?.

Engineering: - solve real-world problems using knowledge and reasoning

 - develop concepts, theory and practice of building intelligent
entities
 - Emphasis on system building

Scientific: - use computers as a platform for studying intelligence itself

- Emphasis on understanding intelligent behavior.
 What is AI?
 Artificial Intelligence is one of the newest sciences which
emerged after the world war II. AI represents a big and open field.

 The name Artificial Intelligence was adopted for the first time in
1956.

 Artificial Intelligence can be viewed as a universal field: How to

automate intellectual tasks?
 What is AI?
Several definitions are available in the literature.
Thinking VS Behavior
Model humans VS Work from an ideal standard

 Two points of views:

1. Thinking/Acting humanly: success is measured in term of fidelity to human
performance.

2. Thinking/Acting rationally: success is measured using an ideal concept of

intelligence called Rationality.

 Rational System = system which does the « right thing » given what it
knows.
Some AI Definitions
 According to thought processes and reasoning

Thinking like humans:

« 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).
Some AI Definitions
Thinking rationally:

« The study of mental faculties through the use of

computational models. » (Charniak and Mcdermott, 1985).

« The study of the computations that make it possible to

perceive, reason and act. » (Winston 1992).
Some AI Definitions
 According to behavior
Acting Humanly

« 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)
 Some AI Definitions
 Acting rationally

« Computational intelligence is the study of the design

of intelligent agents. » (Poole et al.,1998).

« AI…is concerned with intelligent behavior in artifacts.

» (Nilsson, 1998).
 AI Definitions: Conclusion
AI as engineering: a set of techniques which allow computer programs to do
things that would require intelligence if done by a human.
AI as science:

“Weak AI”: whether it is possible for a machine to simulate intelligence

“Strong AI”: whether it is possible for a machine to actually be intelligent

 Important Research and
Application Areas

Game Playing
Automated Reasoning and Theorem Proving
Expert Systems
Natural Language Understanding and Semantic Modeling
Modeling Human Performance
Planning and Robotics
Languages and Environments for AI
Machine Learning
Alternative Representations: Neural Nets and Genetic Algorithms
AI and Philosophy

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Luger: Artificial Intelligence, 6th edition. © Pearson Education Limited, 2009
 Topics:
Introduction to AI:
what is ‘intelligence’
can intelligence be artificial?
history of AI
future prospects
 Important Features of Artificial Intelligence

1. The use of computers to do reasoning, pattern recognition, learning, or some other form of inference.
2. A focus on problems that do not respond to algorithmic solutions. This underlies the reliance on heuristic
search as an AI problem-solving technique.
3. A concern with problem-solving using inexact, missing, or poorly defined information and the use of
representational formalisms that enable the programmer to compensate for these problems.
4. Reasoning about the significant qualitative features of a situation.
5. An attempt to deal with issues of semantic meaning as well as syntactic form.
6. Answers that are neither exact nor optimal, but are in some sense “sufficient”. This is a result of the
essential reliance on heuristic problem-solving methods in situations where optimal or exact results are
either too expensive or not possible.
7. The use of large amounts of domain-specific knowledge in solving problems. This is the basis of expert
systems.
8. The use of meta-level knowledge to effect more sophisticated control of problem-solving strategies.
Although this is a very difficult problem, addressed in relatively few current systems, it is emerging as an
essential are of research.

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 Topics:
Knowledge representation:
 Representation of information in a computer program
 Often information about the external environment, but may be about
abstract things (mathematics, law etc.)
 Representations are declarative—it’s possible to give a precise account
of what they mean which is independent of the operations performed
on them
 Allows the same information to be used to solve different problems
 Topics:
Problem solving and search
One of the earliest approaches to AI

Requires a complete description of the problem in terms of states and

Operators

Many different search techniques have been developed

 Topics:
Agent-based systems
In the 1970’s AI fragmented into sub-disciplines each looking at a
small part of the overall problem of intelligence, e.g.,
problem solving, knowledge representation & reasoning learning,etc.

An agent is a complete system which integrates a range of (often

relatively shallow) competences / skills
A multiagent system is a collection of agents which collaborate to
achieve a goal