Artificial Intelligence

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Artificial Intelligence

• December 11, 2001

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Administrivia

• Assignment 9b is due 5PM Wednesday (12/12)
• Assignment 9c is ready
• you need to go to the web site and do the
  experiment
• for a local research project in web searching
• intended to be fun
• complete before midnight 12/14

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Natural Progression

• You can build a machine
• Make the machine replace you
• Roots in science fiction
• Androids
• An android is an anthropomorphic robot - i.e. a
  robot that looks like a human. For example
  Valerie
• Turing test
• Inability to differentiate between human and
  computer

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What do humans do well

• Process information
• Language
• Images
• Reason
• Create
• Relate to other humans
• Make intuitive decisions
• Enjoy entertainment

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What do computers do well

• Process data quickly
• Handle large amounts of data

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Computers simulating humans

• Have to understand the process
• Build a good model
• Resolve complexities

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Example -- chess

• Number of possible unique chess games is 10120.
• In 1957, artificial intelligence pioneers Herbert
  Simon and Allen Newell predicted that a computer
  would beat a human at chess within 10 years.
• BELLE, a chess program by Ken Thompson and Joe
  Condon, became the first computer to be awarded
  the title of US chess master, in 1983.
• BELLE didnt try to do what a human would do.
  Instead, BELLE took advantage of what computers
  do well.
• In May 1997, IBM's Deep Blue Supercomputer played
  a fascinating match with the reigning World Chess
  Champion, Garry Kasparov and won 3 ½ to 2 ½

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Example -- chess

• Does this count as AI?
• Computer beating best human
• Computer not playing as human would

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Other successes

• Language understanding
• Eliza 1967
• Speech recognition
• Dragon Naturally speaking
• Phone company systems
• Voice mail systems
• Language translation

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Difficulties

• Humans are complex beings and understand
• Language issues
• Time flies like an arrow
• Fruit flies like a banana
• Searching for tables
• Table
• table chair
• 98 correct is often not enough
• 40 typos in a page
• The search space can get very large

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Techniques

• Build a search tree to model the state space
• Find good methods of evaluating possibilities
• Use your evaluation methods to prune the tree

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First steps in TicTacToe
. . . . O . . . X
. . . . X . . . O
. . . . X O . . .
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Turing test

• A person tries to distinguish between a man and a
  woman (responses over a typewriter). If you
  replace one by a machine, does the game change?
• A person and a machine are behind a curtain. An
  interrogator sends questions to each, can the
  interrogator tell which is which?

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Strong AI vs. Weak AI

• strong artificial intelligence states that a
  computer with the right program would be mental.
• weak artificial intelligence just aims to solve
  problems, not necessarily to be mental or model
  human behavior.

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MAJOR CITED IDEAS

• Turing test
• Universal machines
• States in a machine
• Important ideas for AI
• symbol system hypothesis
• programs that modify behavior
• reinforcement learning
• attribution of thinking, intelligence
• importance of consciousness and reflection
• program that surprises
• software not hardware the main bottleneck

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Turing ideas

• PREDICTIONS
• 50 year conjectures pretty close on hardware
• say "machines thinking" without being
  contradicted
• 70 chance of making right identification after 5
  minutes of conversation
• GENERAL SYSTEMS IDEAS
• loops
• virtual memory
• BRAIN SCIENCE CONNECTION
• chemical and electrical properties of neurons
• Now fMRI, neural nets,

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Work in other sciences

• Neural nets
• Build models of machines that think and learn
• Brain mapping
• Determine what clumps of neurons do
• Eventually map individual neurons

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Your questions

• State of art
• State of the art in AI
• Technology in general
• Nature of thinking
• How does the brain do it?
• Must a machine duplicate the brain?
• What is learning?
• Philosophical
• What makes a machine human
• Science Fiction

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State of the art

• What would happen if we kept asking the Chinese
  robot why it just gave the answer that it gave an
  infinite number of times.Could it explain?
• For example
• Input How are you today?
• Output Good.
• Input Why "good"?
• Output I'm having a lovely day.
• Input Why?
• Output I don't know.
• Input Why don't you know?
• ...and so on

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State of the art

• 1is there really any way that the computer can
  create random numbers or is it always just
  numbers that appear random to a human such as the
  digits of pi, as cited in the article or for
  instance e?

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Nature of thinking

• In the article the author discusses the machine
  and how it has set rules and guidelines from
  which it may not deviate. My question is do these
  rules make the machine nothing like the brain,
  seeing as the brain has no rules or guidelines to
  work within, or can these rules and guideline be
  equated to the capacity an individual's brain has
  to learn and make sense of problems, ideas,
  objects, ect.?
• Are modern definitions of a computer "thinking by
  itself" still dependent on continual human
  programming as the only means of progress, or are
  there computers somewhere in the distant or even
  near future that can actually be programmed to
  program themselves based on input of users or
  even just experiences (the way that human beings
  learn and are taught to think)?

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Nature of thinking (cont)

• Can machine language and thought be superior to
  human thought? If so, what does this say for the
  future of society?
• If scientists can ever figure out the exact code
  for the brain, would it be possible to simulate
  it in a strong AI computer?

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Learning

• Is it possible for a computer to learn? Can it
  adapt to unfamiliar situations and "reprogram"
  itself?
• Because a machine cannot have experiences, how is
  it that a machine can learn from experiences and
  acquire the same type of conditioning that humans
  acquire throughout their lives?
• Could a machine ever write a sonnet with the same
  intensity and meaning as a human poet or truly
  enjoy the taste of summer strawberries and cream.
• Can machines ever be programmed to experience
  emotions?

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Philosophical

• We now accept that a computer can beat a chess
  champion, but we don't easily accept that a
  computer could experience human emotions in the
  same way that we do. Is this resistance a
  general belief that human consciousness is so
  unique that it could not be replicated by man?
  Or is it another idea that will be commonly
  accepted in a few more decades?
• I am not convinced by Turing's counter to the
  "Arguments fromVarious Diabilites", particularly
  the question of the computer having itself as the
  subject of its thoughts.
• If a computer can map out responses through a
  network of possible answers and connecting ideas,
  would that make it more human?

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Computers vs. humans

• If we create a machine that is a replica of a
  human brain, using electrons in place of
  neurotransmitters, is that machine a thinking
  machine? Even if it cannot think on its own and
  needs to be able to read the brain activity of a
  person in order to function. If it is able to
  follow human neurotransmitter patterns is it
  thinking or merely copying?
• Is programming a "life history" into a computer
  possible? (Think about the 3 components of the
  mind)
• Is if possible for a computer to simulate
  creativity, which I define as the ability to
  figure out a solution without the inputs
  necessary to draw that conclusion from pure
  logic.

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Science Fiction

• Do you think that it will be possible one day to
  store information in the human's brain or to
  educate humans by using computer programs?(Like
  in the movie the Matrix when the main character
  gets fighting techniques and jump programs stored
  in his brain)
• I was curious as to how much the technical
  aspects of the movie AI are plausible-- I'm not
  talking about the mushy non-technical stuff, but
  how far are we from robots that look and move- in
  ways so similar to humans?
• Do you think that if in a point in time we
  develop machines that could think and be
  human-kind that they would represent a danger for
  humans?