Free Sample Essays > Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence
“Ever since computers were invented, it has been natural to wonder whether they might be able to learn. Imagine computers learning from medical records to discover emerging trends in the spread and treatment of new diseases, houses learning from experience to optimize energy costs based on the particular usage patterns of their occupants, or personal software assistants learning the evolving interests of their users to highlight especially relevant stories from the online morning newspaper.”
- Tom M. Mitchell, AAAI President (2001 - 2003)
Introduction:
Man has always been on the looking for ways to get his work done with minimum efforts and at same time with maximum efficiency.
To obtain these effectively he has discovered and developed various methods with new technologies and implemented them effectively and successfully.
Accuracy and time saving factor are two main important things that have constantly motivated man to find advanced method or ways. Artificial intelligence is really the outcome of a search in this direction.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is going to get some significant exposure with the advent of Steven Spielberg’s new movie "AI". It is about a 13 year old boy who in actuality is a superhuman computer. With this amount of exposure to the AI field it is useful to explain what AI is, where AI is today and what some of the dilemmas that face the future of AI.
If you need an answer to the question what is Artificial Intelligence? And you only have a minute, then here's the definition the American Association for Artificial Intelligence offers on its home page: "the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines."
We often don't notice it, but artificial intelligence (AI) is all around us. It is present in computer games, in the cruise control in our cars and the servers that route our email.
So, can a machine behave like a person? This question underlies artificial intelligence (AI), the study of intelligent behavior in machines.
Artificial intelligence is defined as the ability of a machine to think for itself. Scientists and theorists continue to debate if computers will actually be able to think for themselves at one point. The generally accepted theory is that computers do and will think more in the future.
Brief history/ evolution
The idea of building intelligent machines or beings is very old, but the modern field of artificial intelligence really began with Alan Turing. Before electronic computers even existed, Turing saw that computers could act in a way that would be seen as intelligent. In 1950 he published Computing Machinery and Intelligence, which presented the idea of the Turing Test. The Turing Test provides an operational definition of intelligence by specifying the behavior that would count as being intelligent. Now computers could do more than numeric calculations, they could do symbol processing.
Programmable computers are general-purpose machines that follow completely detailed steps to perform calculations. Scientists saw the potential for these new machines to not just calculate, but to reason and learn. Early electronic computers like Colussus and Eniac were even called “giant [next page]