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Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence


Introduction

Human beings today are wrestling with complex issues regarding their cognitive abilities, their strength, their scope and their limitations. There is a debate going on over the nature of mind and the thinking and problem solving abilities of human beings. With the incredible growth of scientific technology, scientists are asking whether the reproduction of human mind-like functions is possible or not? Can the scientists of today create machines that perform intelligent behavior and conduct logical and objective functions that only human beings were once capable of performing? After 50 years of research on the functionality of Artificial Intelligence, the answer seems to be positive. Technologists today are coming up with humanoid models that are capable of mimicking human beings in different actions. They can also perform thinking exercises, such as understanding speech patterns and, more popularly, beating world-class chess players. Artificial Intelligence has become an accepted feature of our daily lives. Its common applications include: game playing, speech recognition, understanding natural language, generating 3-D computer vision etc. (McCarthy, 2004).


Some Common Definitions:

It is the function and aim of Artificial Intelligence to simulate human intelligence functions to discover the answers to difficult logical problems. John McCarthy, considered widely to be amongst the founding fathers of Artificial Intelligence, has defined Artificial Intelligence as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs" (McCarthy, 2004). Allen Newell, a colleague of McCarthy, believes Artificial Intelligence is the computer's ability to absorb knowledge and then after analyzing the data provided and by comparing it to the logical functions ingrained in its memory, take necessary steps and reach correct conclusions. It is, in his words, "not to be rigid and unthinking, but rather, to behave conditionally……to be sometimes this way, sometimes that, as appropriate" (American Association Of Artificial Intelligence).

Artificial Intelligence is that branch of science that helps machines in finding solutions to difficult problems in a way similar to human beings. This occurs when "intelligent agents" borrow human characteristics that have been implanted in their software and reach conclusions in the light of these human, logical characteristics. Simply speaking, agents are provided with a problem, after analyzing it they decide upon a plan of action, perform it and come up with a solution. On a lighter note, Russell Beale once suggested a suitable definition of Artificial Intelligence as "the attempt to get real machines behave like the ones in the movies" (Sloman, 2004).


Historical Background Of Artificial Intelligence:

It is largely believed that Artificial Intelligence is a new phenomenon. This perception is wrong, owing a great deal to the popular beliefs promoted by movies and the entertainment media. People are surprised to discover that the concept of AI began to gain attention in the post WWII world in which most technologists and scientists became fascinated by the complex firearms and other machines widely used during the war. Alan Turing is generally given credit with first bringing the concept of Artificial Intelligence to the forefront. It was John McCarthy, however, who coined the term "Artificial Intelligence" and organized a conference in Dartmouth in the year 1956, which proved to be defining in the history of AI research ("An Introduction To The Science Of Artificial Intelligence", 1997). This conference not only brought together scientists interested in AI together but also brought the theory under the attention of the world. It helped to make it a more commonly understood idea in the eyes of funding organizations, governments and the public alike. The conference lasted a whole month and saw a brainstorming of ideas amongst scientists interested in the notion of machine intelligence. It laid the groundwork upon which all future research was to be based. Soon there were centers of AI research at Carnegie Mellon and MIT, where the researchers busied themselves with creating problem-solving systems. In 1957, the initial version of a program that would later be used widely, was developed, namely the "General Problem Solver" (GPS). In 1958, McCarthy announced the development of LISP language, which is in use even today ("An Introduction To The Science Of Artificial Intelligence", 1997). Soon, AI gained the attention of governments all over the world and funding began to pour in. In 1963 MIT received 2.2 million dollars in grant from the Government of the United States. By 1986, the AI related software and hardware sales had gone up to a whopping 425 million dollars. Artificial Intelligence had arrived!


Cognitive Sciences:

A branch of Psychology, cognitive sciences is interested in the mind functions and the carrying out of basic cognitive activities by the human brain. Cognitive scientists build models and illustrate what is going on in the human mind during thinking, reasoning, learning, perceiving, organizing and manipulating information (Holden, 1986). A vast and complex field, it usually draws from psychology and at the same time, from other fields such as linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience and philosophy. In the early developmental phases of Artificial Intelligence, psychologists did not show a great deal of interest in the concept. However, as awareness regarding the potentials began to spread, psychologists became attracted to information-processing as a model for understanding mental processes (Holden, 1986).


Relationship Of Cognitive Sciences And Psychology To AI:

There is a strong relationship between psychology and Artificial Intelligence – they both have intelligence as their main focus. For psychologists, intelligence is an issue that is not just a mystery but also highly controversial and filled with a great deal of complexities. The field of cognitive science and Artificial Intelligence share many characteristics in common. Herbert Simon aptly described this connection between the two fields saying that the purpose of Artificial Intelligence is to use "the computer's artificial intelligence to understand how humans think. In a humanoid way. If you test your programs not merely by what they can accomplish, but how they accomplish it, they you're really doing cognitive science; you're using AI to understand the human mind" (American Association Of Artificial Intelligence).

Many psychologists raise questions about how human intellect could be compared to that of Artificial Intelligence? The computer, although programmed to act and deduce in a human manner, still is "mindless". It has no insight, nor any creativity. It is nothing more than a computer program that goes on and on till it reaches a conclusion in a totally mechanical fashion. The psychologists ask that if computer programs can perform logical functions, do they qualify to be labeled as intelligent as human beings are?

Artificial Intelligence scientists argue that the basic building block of intelligence is the ability to draw inferences. Both human beings and AI operated programs are capable of drawing inferences, i.e., they both have the capacity to come to a conclusion by deducing from facts that have been placed before them (Wagman 62, 1993). They argue that human thinking has a physical basis and that whatever the mind does of cognitive significance can be explained and represented symbolically. These symbols are used in creating programs for Artificial Intelligence (Holden, 1986).


Critics' Opinions:

As is common with all fresh ideas, the concept of Artificial Intelligence did and still does get criticized. In the early phases of its development, scientists focused on "content-free" problem solving tasks such as games and puzzles (Holden, 1986). Such exercises were made fun of by the critics who considered these games to be child's play. Critics claimed that these games were unable to operate on the complex level that human mind works. These early developments were considered insufficient in terms of problem solving. John Searle, a famous critic of AI, considered it unthinkable for non-biological machines to become capable of accomplishing the cognitive and problem solving tasks achieved by the human mind. His "Chinese Room" argument is well known in this regard (McCarthy, 2004). Even members of the scientist community have ridiculed the AI concept. Joseph Weizenbaum criticized the concept of AI as unethical and immoral. It is argued that since these machines will be pre-programmed hence they will be unable to express spontaneous emotions and will also be unable to draw objective conclusions in the face of novel problems and issues.


The Future:

For the public, the concept of Artificial Intelligence is associated with robots taking over the world and destroying mankind in "Terminator" mode. Reality however, is far from this. Today Artificial Intelligence has saturated the world in amazing ways. It is impossible to function in the present world without the aid of AI. Our banking systems, hospitals, and supermarkets all depend on AI. In the recent couple of decades the world has witnessed a boom in societies and state-funded laboratories all around the world, carrying out scientific experiments in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Organizations such as "The American Association Of Artificial Intelligence", (AAAI) "European Coordinating Committee For Artificial Intelligence,� (ECCAI) “Society For Artificial Intelligence And Simulation Of Behavior" (AISB) all are working for furthering developments in this field (McCarthy,2004).





References
•"American Association For Artificial Intelligence." N.d. American Association For Artificial Intelligence. 1 Feb. 2007. <http://www.aaai.org/home.html>
•"An Introduction To The Science Of Artificial Intelligence." 21 June. 1997 ThinkQuest. 1 Feb. 2007. < http://library.thinkquest.org/2705/>
•"Artficial Intelligence – Outline." 2002. CompInfo. 1 Feb 2007. <http://www.compinfo-center.com/tpai-t.htm>
• Holden, Constance. "The Rational Optimist; Will Computers Ever Think like People?" Psychology Today Oct. 1986: 54+.
• McCarthy, John. "What Is Artificial Intelligence?" 24 Nov. 2004. Stanford University. 1 Feb. 2007 <http://wwwformal.stanford.edu/jmc/whatisai/>.
• Sloman, Aron. "What Is Artificial Intelligence?" 18 Feb. 2004. University Of Birmingham. 1 Feb. 2007 <http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/%7Eaxs/misc/aiforschools.html>
• Wagman, Morton. Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence: Theory and Research in Cognitive Science. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1993.
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Posted by: Christie Ingram

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