| Artificial intelligence |
Intelligence
We may define intelligence as the ability of a person. An animal or even a machine to interact with the real world by perceiving, understanding and acting to solve problems, plan and make decisions in different situations under different circumstances. Some of the examples of intelligence are as follows.
• Understanding, recognising and synthesising speech
• Conversing in a language
• Reading, writing and analysing text
•Recognising persons, animals, things and images
•Reasoning, planning and acting to do a task
Decision-making is one of the crucial parts of intelligence. Let’s understand how we make decisions. The basis of decision making depends upon the availability of data, information and instructions, and the way we experience and understand them. Humans are known to be Intelligent by birth as they can make decisions. A computer has no intelligence in itself. It is the human being which provides intelligence to computer by providing each and every instruction to them. Artificial Intelligence is the technology to make a computer intelligent. Let’s discuss in this chapter what Artificial Intelligence is and how can it be used for various applications of our daily life.
Artificial intelligence and data science-
Humans have been developing smart machines to make their lives easier. Today, we are surrounded by different kinds of smart devices, and gadgets like smartphones, smartwatches and smart television. Smart mobile phones can do much more than just calling up people. They help us in navigating, chatting, video conferencing, listening to our favourite songs, watching latest movies and getting any information round the clock through Internet applications.
In our daily life we use some automatic devices such as a washing machine that seems like working on its own, but actually requires human beings to select the parameters of washing. So it is just an automated machine and is not an Al machine. Similarly, an air conditioner that can be turned on/off remotely with the help of Internet is also an example of automation. It is not an example of Artificial Intelligence. The basic requirement of an Artificial Intelligence device is that it should have an ability to work intelligently on its own without human Intervention. A simple automated device on the other hand just works with the help of sensors through human intervention. It is also wrong to call a simple automated device a smart machine unless it is Al enabled. For example, a television does not become smart unless it gets the power of Artificial Intelligence to think and process data on its own.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the branch of Computer Science, which is concerned with building fifth-generation computers that are capable of performing tasks Intelligently similar to human beings. Earlier the previous four generations of computers needed instructions to perform a task by telling them what to do and how to do. However the fifth generation of computers needs instructions from users as what to do. It is the programmer who programs a fifth-generation computer in such a way that it responds to the users intelligently in an artificial way. That’s why the computers or machines based on Artificial Intelligence are also called smart machines.
Definitions of Artificial Intelligence–
Artificial Intelligence has been defined by great scientists in various different ways. Let’s have a look.
Elain Rich of University of Texas at Austin defines Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the study of how to make computers do things at which, at the moment, people are better.
According to Eugene Charniak of Brown University. Artificial Intelligence is the study of mental faculties through the use of computational models.
According to Patrick H. Winston of MIT, Artificial Intelligence is the study of the computations that makes it possible to perceive, reason and act.
According to Marvin Minsky of MIT. Artificial Intelligence is the science of making machines to do things that require intelligence if done by men.
National Strategy Mission for Artificial Intelligence in NITI Aayog of Indian government defines Artificial Intelligence as the ability of machines to perform cognitive tasks like thinking, perceiving, learning, problem solving and decision making.
World Economic Forum defines Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the software engine that drives the fourth Industrial revolution with its impact in homes, businesses and political processes.
The main purpose of Artificial Intelligence is to aid human capabilities and help us make advanced decisions with comprehensive magnitudes. As humans become more and more intelligent with time as they gain experiences during their lives, machines also become intelligent once they are trained with some information which helps them achieve their tasks. Artificial Intelligent machines also keep updating their knowledge with time. Currently, Artificial Intelligence is used mostly by companies to improve their process efficiencies, automate difficult manual tasks. And to make business predictions based on comprehensive data and expertise information.
Developments in the Field of Intelligence
Let’s have a look at the timeline that show the developments in the field of intelligence.
1770 – Wolfgang von Kempelen: Constructed an automated mechanical device that could play Chess and perform a knight’s tour.
1818 – Mary Shelley, Wrote a story, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus that described an attempt by Victor Frankenstein to create an artificial life
1923 – Karel Capek: A play named Rossum’s Universal Robots (RUR) performed in London and the word “Robot” in English used for the first time
1943 – Warren McCulloch, Walter Pits: Proposed a model of artificial neurons
1945 – Isaac Asimov Coined the term “Robotics”
1949 – Donald Hebb; Demonstrated an updating rule (Hebbian Learning) to modify connection strength between neurons
1950 – Alan Turing: Introduced Turing Test to evaluate intelligence published research paper ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence ‘
1955 – Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon: Created the first Artificial Intelligence program named as Logic Theorist
1964 – Danny Bobrow: Proposed a thesis at MIT demonstrated computers ability to understand natural language to solve algebraic problems
1965 – Joseph Weizenbaum :Built an Interactive program. Eliza at MIT, To carry on a dialogue in English
1969 – Scientists at Stanford Research Institute: Developed a robot, named Shakey that could move, sense and solve a problem
1973 – Assembly Robotics Group at Edinburgh University: Built the famous Scottish robot, Freddy, that was capable of using vision to locate and assemble models
1979 – Stanford University: Built the first computer-controlled vehicle. Stanford Cart
1980 – Expert systems programmed and the first national conference of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence held at Stanford university
1990 – Major advances in all areas of Artificial Intelligence
2000 – Interactive robot pets commercially available
2002 – Entry of robots into homes for the first time in the form of a vacuum cleaner named Roomba
2006 – Use of Artificial Intelligence by companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix in the business world
2012 Google: Launched an Android application, Google Now that could provide information as a prediction
2013 – High- mobility, humanoid robots designed for outdoor and rough terrain for search and rescue tasks
2016 — Google switched from statistical phrase-based machine translation to deep learning- Based machine translation (a product of over 60 years of research)
2017 – A high-quality, real-time speech-to-speech machine translation developed in Japan to help visitors in 2020 Tokyo Olympics that covers 27 languages for text and four languages for speech translation