The
idea of the robot replacing the need for human intelligence
is a startling thought. Could these machines develop
beyond our control? This section explains what Artificial
Intelligence is and the scientific skills involved.
What
is Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)?
Strong and Weak A.I.
The
Turing Test
Branches
of A.I.
What
is Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)?
The
term Artificial Intelligence was first coined by
John McCarthy in 1956 when he proposed that "intelligence
can in principle be so precisely described that
a machine can be made to simulate it." He now defines
A.I. as "the science and engineering of making intelligent
machines, especially intelligent computer programs."
A.I. 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.
Strong
and Weak A.I.
Artificial
Intelligence is often divided into two classes:
Strong A.I. and Weak A.I.. Strong A.I. makes the
bold claim that computers can be made to think on
a level at least equal to humans; that they are
capable of cognitive mental states. This is the
kind of A.I. that is portrayed in movies like Blade
Runner and more recently A.I.. Weak A.I.
simply states that some "thinking-like" features
can be added to computers to make them more useful
tools; that machines can simulate human cognition,
in other words act as if they are intelligent. This
has already started to happen, for example, speech
recognition software.
The
Turing Test
The
'Turing Test' is an experiment suggested by mathematician
Alan Turing in his 1950 paper Computing Machinery
and Intelligence. He argued that if a machine
could successfully pretend to be human to a knowledgeable
observer, then you certainly should consider it
intelligent. In the Turing test, a judge has conversations
via teletype, with two systems, one human, the other
a machine. The conversations can be about anything,
and proceed for a set period of time. If, at the
end of this time, the judge cannot distinguish the
machine from the human on the basis of the conversation,
then Turing argued that we would have to say that
the machine was intelligent.
Branches
of A.I.
There are many branches of Artificial Intelligence
including:
� Neural Networks - These are systems that attempt
to simulate intelligence by reproducing the types
of physical connections that occur in animal brains.
� Natural Language Processing - This involves programming
computers to understand natural human languages.
� Robotics - This field attempts to robots to act
intelligently. For example to see and hear and react
to other sensory stimuli.
� Game Playing -This involves programming computers
to play games such as chess.
� Expert systems - This is where computers are programmed
to make decisions in real-life situations.
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