Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Grading
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Problem sets: mostly programming
assignments (Lisp: more on this soon).
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Midterm
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Final
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Class participation and discussion.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
 What is Artificial Intelligence?
Some Definitions...

The exciting new effort to make

computers think …
machines with minds,
in the full literal sense.
 What is Artificial Intelligence?
Some Definitions...

The study of mental faculties through the use

of computational models. Charniak and McDermott, 1985

A field of study that seeks to explain and

emulate intelligent behavior in terms of
computational processes. Schalkoff, 1990
 What is Artificial Intelligence?
Some Definitions...

The study of how to make computers

do things at which, at the moment,
people are better.
Rich & Knight, 1991
 What is Artificial Intelligence?

Programs that behave externally like humans?

Programs that operate internally as humans do?
Computational systems that behave intelligently?
Rational behaviour?
 Dimensions in AI Definitions

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Build intelligent artifacts vs. understanding
human behavior.
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Does it matter how I built it as long as it
does the job well?
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Should the system behave like a human or
behave intelligently?

The Turing Test

 Dimensions in AI Definitions
The Turing Test
A Turing Test is a method of inquiry in artificial intelligence (AI) for determining whether or
not a computer is capable of thinking like a human being. The test is named after Alan
Turing, the founder of the Turning Test and an English computer scientist, cryptanalyst,
mathematician and theoretical biologist.

Turing proposed that a computer can be said to possess artificial intelligence if it can mimic
human responses under specific conditions. The original Turing Test requires three terminals,
each of which is physically separated from the other two. One terminal is operated by a
computer, while the other two are operated by humans.

During the test, one of the humans functions as the questioner, while the second human and
the computer function as respondents. The questioner interrogates the respondents within a
specific subject area, using a specified format and context. After a preset length of time or
number of questions, the questioner is then asked to decide which respondent was human and
which was a computer.

The test is repeated many times. If the questioner makes the correct determination in half of
the test runs or less, the computer is considered to have artificial intelligence because the
questioner regards it as "just as human" as the human respondent.
 Dimensions in AI Definitions
The Turing Test

Human beings are intelligent

To be called intelligent, a machine must produce
responses that are indistinguishable from those of a human
 Dimensions in AI Definitions
Acting humanly:The Turing Test
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Turing (1950) "Computing machinery and intelligence":
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"Can machines think?"  "Can machines behave intelligently?"
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Operational test for intelligent behavior: the Imitation Game

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Anticipated major arguments against AI in following 50 years
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Suggested major components of AI:
- knowledge representation
- reasoning,
- language/image understanding,
- learning
 What Does AI Really Do?
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Knowledge Representation (how does a
program represent its domain of
discourse?)
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Automated reasoning.
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Planning (get the robot to find the bananas
in the other room).
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Machine Learning (adapt to new
circumstances).
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Natural language understanding.
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Machine vision, speech recognition, finding
data on the web, robotics, and much more.
 A Brief History of AI
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The Dartmouth conference, Summer ‘56.
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Early enthusiasm 52-59:
– Puzzle solving with the General Problem
Solver, Geometry theorem prover, Checkers
player, Lisp.
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Reality strikes:
– Programs don’t scale up.
– The problem is not as easy as we thought:
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The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak -->
The vodka is good but the meat is rotten.
 More History
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Knowledge-based systems (expert
systems) 1969-1979:
– Ed Feigenbaum (Stanford): Knowledge is
power! (as opposed to weak methods)
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Dendral (inferring molecular structure from a mass
spectrometer).
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MYCIN: diagnosis of blood infections
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AI becomes an industry:
– R1: configuring computers for DEC.
– Robotic vision applications
 Recent Events: 1987-Present
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AI turns more scientific, relies on more
mathematically sophisticated tools:
– Hidden Markov models (for speech
recognition)
– Belief networks (see Office 97).
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Focus turns to building useful artifacts as
opposed to solving the grand AI problem.
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The victory of the neats over the scruffies?
 Recent AI Successes
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Deep Blue beats Kasparov (AI?)
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Theorem provers proved an unknown
theorem.
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Expert systems: medical, diagnosis, design
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Speech recognition applications (in limited
domains).
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Robots controlling quality in factories.
• Intelligent agents on board Deep Space 1.
 Recent AI Successes

Autonomous planning and scheduling of
tasks aboard a spacecraft

Beating Gary Kasparov in a chess match
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Steering a driver-less car

Understanding language

Robotic assistants in surgery

Monitoring trade in the stock market to see
if insider trading is going on
 An Intelligent Agent
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‘Anything’ that can gather information about
its environment and take action based on that
information.
 An Intelligent Agent

Natural lang. effectors

input
vision

Knowledge learning
representation

planning reasoning
 Artificial Intelligence
The word Artificial Intelligence comprises of two words
“Artificial” and “Intelligence”. Artificial refers to
something which is made by human or non natural thing
and Intelligence means ability to understand or think.
There is a misconception that Artificial Intelligence is a
system, but it is not a system .AI is implemented in the
system. There can be so many definition of AI, one
definition can be “It is the study of how to train the
computers so that computers can do things which at
present human can do better.”Therefore It is a
intelligence where we want to add all the capabilities to
machine that human contain.
 Machine Learning
Machine Learning is the learning in which machine can
learn by its own without being explicitly programmed. It
is an application of AI that provide system the ability to
automatically learn and improve from experience. Here
we can generate a program by integrating input and
output of that program. One of the simple definition of
the Machine Learning is “Machine Learning is said to
learn from experience E w.r.t some class of task T and a
performance measure P if learners performance at the
task in the class as measured by P improves with
experiences.”
 The key difference between AI and ML are:
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MACHINE LEARNING
1.AI stands for Artificial intelligence, 1.ML stands for Machine Learning
where intelligence is defined as a which is defined as the acquisition of
ability to acquire and apply knowledge. knowledge or skill
2. The aim is to increase chance of 2.The aim is to increase accuracy, but
success and not accuracy. it does not care about success
3.It work as a computer program that 3.It is a simple concept machine takes
does smart work. data and learn from data.
4.The goal is to simulate natural 4.The goal is to learn from data on
intelligence to solve complex problem. certain task to maximize the
5.AI is decision making performance of machine on this task.
6.It leads to develop a system to mimic 5.ML allows system to learn new
human to respond behave in a things from data.
circumstances. 6.It involves in creating self learning
7.AI will go for finding the optimal algorithms.
solution. 7.ML will go for only solution for that
8.AI leads to intelligence or wisdom. whether it is optimal or not.
8.ML leads to knowledge.
Knowledge Representation
 Knowledge Representation
The general framework for solving problems by computer is given above
figure.
To solve a problem, the designer of a system must :
flesh out the task and determine what constitutes a solution;
represent the problem in a language with which a computer
can reason;
use the computer to compute an output, which is an answer
presented to a user or a sequence of actions to be carried out
in the environment; and
interpret the output as a solution to the problem.
 Knowledge Representation
Knowledge is the information about a domain that can be used to
solve problems in that domain.
To solve many problems requires much knowledge, and this
knowledge must be represented in the computer.
As part of designing a program to solve problems, we must define
how the knowledge will be represented.
A representation scheme is the form of the knowledge that is used in
an agent.
A representation of some piece of knowledge is the internal
representation of the knowledge.
A representation scheme specifies the form of the knowledge.

A knowledge base is the representation of all of the knowledge that

is stored by an agent.
 Knowledge Representation
A good representation scheme is a compromise among many
competing objectives. A representation should be:
Rich enough to express the knowledge needed to solve the
problem, as close to the problem as possible;
It should be compact, natural, and maintainable.
It should be easy to see the relationship between the representation
and the domain being represented, so that it is easy to determine
whether the knowledge represented is correct. A small change in the
problem should result in a small change in the representation of the
problem.
Amenable to efficient computation, which usually means that it is
able to express features of the problem that can be exploited for
computational gain and able to trade off accuracy and computation
time.
Able to be acquired from people, data and past experiences.
 Knowledge Representation
Knowledge representation techniques: All of these, in different
ways, involve hierarchical representation of data.
Lists - linked lists are used to represent hierarchical knowledge
Trees - graphs which represent hierarchical knowledge.

LISP, the main programming language of AI, was developed to process lists and trees.

Semantic networks - nodes and links - stored as propositions.

Schemas-used to represent commonsense or stereotyped knowledge.
Frames- Describe objects.
Scripts- Describe event rather than objects.
Rule-based representations-used in specific problem-solving
contexts.
Logic-based representations - may use deductive or inductive
reasoning.
 The classical AI approach
The classical AI system is made up of two basic parts:

A knowledge base:
Name of objects (things, people, places, events ... in the chosen domain)
Concepts and theories about these objects
Practical procedures and relationships representing real-world knowledge

An inference mechanism:
Procedures which examine the knowledge base in an orderly manner
Procedures are used to reason, answer questions, solve problems & make decisions
within the domain
 State Space Search
State space search is a process used in the field of computer science,
including artificial intelligence (AI), in which successive
configurations or states of an instance are considered, with the
intention of finding a goal state with a desired property.
Problems are often modelled as a state space, a set of states that a
problem can be in.
The set of states forms a graph where two states are connected if there
is an operation that can be performed to transform the first state into
the second.
State space search often differs from traditional computer science
search methods because the state space is implicit: the typical state
space graph is much too large to generate and store in memory.
Instead, nodes are generated as they are explored, and typically
discarded thereafter. A solution to a combinatorial search instance
may consist of the goal state itself, or of a path from some initial state
to the goal state.
 Production Systems

A production system (or production rule system) is a computer

program typically used to provide some form of artificial intelligence,
which consists primarily of a set of rules about behavior but it also
includes the mechanism necessary to follow those rules as the system
responds to states of the world.
 Production Systems
Productions consist of two parts:
a sensory precondition (or "IF" statement) and
an action (or "THEN").

If a production's precondition matches the current state of the world,

then the production is said to be triggered.
If a production's action is executed, it is said to have fired.

A production system also contains a database, sometimes called

working memory, which maintains data about current state or
knowledge, and a rule interpreter.

The rule interpreter must provide a mechanism for prioritizing

productions when more than one is triggered.
 Production Systems
Productions consist of two parts:
a sensory precondition (or "IF" statement) and
an action (or "THEN").

If a production's precondition matches the current state of the world,

then the production is said to be triggered.
If a production's action is executed, it is said to have fired.

A production system also contains a database, sometimes called

working memory, which maintains data about current state or
knowledge, and a rule interpreter.

The rule interpreter must provide a mechanism for prioritizing

productions when more than one is triggered.
 Production Systems
In the following example:
lines 1-3 are type declarations,
4 describes the initial state,
5 is a reactive rule,
6-7 are logic program clauses, and
8 is a causal law
1. fluents fire.
2. actions eliminate, escape.
3. events deal_with_fire.
4. initially fire.
5. if fire then deal_with_fire.
6. deal_with_fire if eliminate.
7. deal_with_fire if escape.
8. eliminate terminates fire.
 AI Problem Charateristics
1. Decomposable to smaller or easier problems
2. Solution steps can be ignored or undone
3. Predictable problem universe
4. Good solutions are obvious
5. Uses internally consistent knowledge base
6. Requires lots of knowledge or uses knowledge
to constrains solutions
7. Requires periodic interaction between human and
computer.
 AI Problem Charateristics
1. The AI programs manipulate symbols whereas
conventional programs deal with numerical processing.
Explanation :
Conventional Programs deals processing with numbers which are easy as
compared to processing symbols.

Understanding the paragraph written by a stenographer in shorthand will also be

more difficult than understanding the paragraph written in English.
 AI Problem Charateristics
2. The basis of AI program is that it must be able to
manipulate the knowledge and it has to be represented in a
way that in which it can be easily manipulated.
Explanation :
AI programs can only manipulate knowledge if it is written in a specific
format. So writing the knowledge in a specific format is a challenge. Knowledge
has to be written in Left Hand –> Right-Hand pair.
 AI Problem Charateristics
3. The problems of AI deal with have a combinational
explosion of various solution paths. E.g. Chess problem or
in general game playing.
Explanation :
The only common thing between the games like snakes and ladders, Rubik’s
cube, Tik Tak Toe is there are so many possible ways to win the game. In cricket,
you will not always have the same score to chase in the same number of balls.
Combinational explosion refers to the high number of ways available for any
given problem.
 AI Problem Charateristics
4. A very important characteristic of AI program is its
ability to learn through experience. E.g. we become perfect
in a particular task if we have experience of tackling it.
Explanation :
Practice makes the machine perfect. Machine stores the solution once found
for a problem so that another search for a solution is not required. Just like
humans, we don’t do the same mistake again as we gain experience to handle it.
 AI Problem Charateristics
5. The AI problems involve a large amount of knowledge
base as compared to conventional programs which require
database only.
Explanation :
You have to create a database for a conventional program whereas for AI
problems we need the database which is referred to as Knowledge bank.
 AI Problem Charateristics
6. The AI programs are inferential in nature whereas
conventional programs are recursive in nature.

Explanation :
AI programs are characterized by deriving conclusions on the basis of proof or
reasoning.
 AI Problem Charateristics
7. The AI problems involve a large amount of knowledge
base as compared to conventional programs which require
database only.
Explanation :
You have to create a database for a conventional program whereas for AI
problems we need the database which is referred to as Knowledge bank.
 AI Problem Charateristics
The AI problem use a heuristic technique to search a
solution path where a traditional program uses algorithmic
search.
Explanation :
AI uses a guided path to find a solution, Guidance for picking a path is
provided in terms of distance left or cost to reach the goal. For example, to reach
Delhi from Noida, You will pick the road which reduces the distance to Delhi
(Goal). The information of how much distance is left is called heuristic
information. Notice that this helps in choosing right path out of so many paths
available.