Understanding Concept of Artificial Intelligence

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence is a part of computer science that is focused on developing such machines or systems which could solve the problems that may otherwise require human intelligence. Artificial intelligence combines the features of computer science, physiology and philosophy. The idea is to make a machine artificially intelligent by incorporating such programs and equipments that are capable of taking decisions on their own in case of problems in a particular domain for which the system is made. Researcher are creating such systems that can imitate the thoughts of human, recognize human speech and interact with them, question and answering systems, moving the chess moves according to the move of the human opponent. Expert Systems employs the use of artificial intelligence. MYCIN and DENDRAL were one of the earliest expert systems designed for chemical analysis and medical diagnosis respectively.

Artificial Intelligence is made up of two words:

Artificial:

It means something that is not natural but is made by human skills or produced by the humans. It implies creating a copy or imitation of human. Though we can make a machine artificially similar to human but it lacks spontaneity and naturalness.

Intelligence:

It implies injecting intelligence into a machine so that it can perform the work which would otherwise require human brain. The device should be able to take its own decision according to a particular situation. For example, the game chess on a computer is artificially intelligent. The computer plays its moves according to the moves of the opponent rather than having any fixed moves. In order to make a machine artificially intelligent, it should possess the following capabilities:

Learning:

The device should be capable of learning from its errors, so that next time they are not repeated.

Reasoning:

Reasoning implies the ability of the device or machine to reach to a conclusion according to the problem. Reasoning is further of two types viz. deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. In deductive reasoning we derive the accurate conclusion from the given problem. However in case of inductive reasoning there is 50:50 chance of the conclusion to be correct.

Problem Solving:

The machine should be able to solve the problem for which it is made. There are two types of problem solving methods viz. special purpose and general purpose. A general purpose method is used to solve wide range of problems while special purpose focuses on a particular problem.

Perception:

The machine should be able to sense the environment around it and take the decision accordingly. For example, some robots have been developed which make their way by sensing the objects coming between and moving ahead without colliding.

Natural language Understanding:

There should be some means that the machine should be able to understand the natural language whether written or spoken and perform its actions accordingly.

Goals of Artificial Intelligence:

The main goal behind constructing artificially intelligent devices is to reduce human efforts. Moreover, to develop such machines which could perform human work this is dangerous for human lives. In general , the goals of artificial intelligent system are: to think like humans, to think rationally, to act like humans and to act rationally.