Foundations of AI
Foundations of AI
Study of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, reasoning, ethics, and reality.
• How does the mind arise from a physical brain?
• Where does knowledge come from?
• How does knowledge lead to action?
• Can formal rules be used to draw valid conclusions?
Aristotle(384-322 B.C): Proposed syllogism to represent the rational part of mind.
All dogs are animals and all animals have 4 legs => All dogs have 4 legs.
Ramon Lull(1315): proposed reasoning system.
Leonard da vinci(1452-1519): designed 1st mechanical calculator.
Blaise pascal(1623-1662): built Pascaline – Arithmetic Machine – Tax calculation
Leibniz(1646-1716): built mechanical device that operates on concepts rather than numbers but its scope was limited.
Foundations of AI
2. Mathematics: Mathematics is the backbone of AI.
What can be computed?
How do we reason with uncertain information?
Example: Neural networks use linear algebra and calculus during training.
Foundations of AI
3. Economics:
• How should we do this when others may not go along? – Eg: Autonomous Cars
• How should we do this when the payoff may be far in the future? – Eg: Future Investments/long term investments
Decision theory: combines probability theory with utility theory provides formal and complete framework for individual decision making.
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents.
Examples: If they both confess to being bank robbers, then each will serve 3-year imprisonment for both can theft and robbery.
If only one of the confesses to being a bank robber and the other does not, then the person who confesses will serve 1-year and others will serve 10-year imprisonment.
Foundations of AI
3. Economics:
Foundations of AI
4. Neuroscience: study of nervous system especially brain. How brain enables thought is the mystery.
Paul Broca(1824-1880) investigation of aphasia in 1861 in the left hemisphere of brain which is responsible for speech production, it was noticed that brain is the collection of large cells called neurons
1873: Camillo Golgi developed a staining technique allowing observation of brain cells which was used by Ramon Cajal to point out that collection of simple cells an lead to thoughts, actions, and consciousness, Brain caused mind.
1929 – Hansberg(EEG) fMRI(ogean) provide the details of ongoing cognitive actions in brain.
Optogenteics (crick,1999) allows both measurement and control of individual neurons on light sensitivity operate.
Foundations of AI
4. Neuroscience:
Foundations of AI
4. Neuroscience:
Foundations of AI
5. Psychology - How do humans and animals think and act?
German physicists Herman and wundit opened the first laboratory of experimental psychology, at the university of Leipzig.
Wundit insisted on carefully controlled experiments in which his workers would perform a perceptual or associative task while introspecting on their thought processes.
Cognitive psychology views the brain as an information-processing device.
Cralk(1943) specified the three key steps of a knowledge-based agent:
1) the stimulus must be translated into an internal representation.
2) the representation is manipulated by cognitive processes to derive new internal representation
3) these are in turn retranslated back into action.
Foundations of AI
6. Computer Engineering - How can we build efficient computer
1940: the first operational computer was the electromechanical Heath Robinson, built by Alan Turing’s team for a single purpose: deciphering German messages
1943 the same group developed the colossus, a powerful general-purpose machine based on vacuum tubes.
1941 the first operational programmable computer was the Z-3, the invention of Konrad Zuse in Germany.
Charles Babbage (1792–1871): Babbage’s Analytical Engine was far more ambitious: it included addressable memory, stored programs, and conditional jumps and was the first artifact capable of universal computation.
Ada Lovelace wrote programs for the unfinished Analytical Engine and even speculated that the machine could play chess or compose music.
Software side of computer science has supplied the operating systems, programming languages, and tools needed to write modern programs.
Foundations of AI
7. Control Theory and Cybernetics - How can artifacts operate under-their own control?
Control Theory is the branch of engineering and mathematics that studies how a system automatically controls its behavior to achieve a desired goal using feedback.
Control theory was created by Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) who studied biological and mechanical control systems and their connection to cognitive systems.
Alexandria (c. 250 B.C) built the self-controlling machine: a water clock with a regulator that maintained a constant flow rate.
Thermostat, invented by cornelis Drebbel (1572-1633)
Cybernetics: feedback mechanism - Cybernetics is the study of communication, control, and feedback in living organisms and machines.
Control Theory forms one of the foundations of AI because intelligent agents must: Sense the environment, Compare the current state with the desired state, Compute the error, Choose the best action.
Foundations of AI
8. Linguistic : How does language relate to thought
In 1957, B.F Skinner published verbal behaviour. This was a comprehensive, detailed account of the behaviourist approach to language learning.
Skinner believed language is learned through imitation and reinforcement.
Noam Chomsky, who had just published a book on his own theory, Syntactic Structures. Chomsky pointed out that the behaviorist theory did not address the notion of creativity in language—it did not explain how a child could understand and make up sentences that he or she had never heard before.
Chomsky argued that humans are born with an innate language ability (LAD), enabling children to understand and create new sentences they have never heard before.
Computational linguistics or natural language COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS processing: understanding language requires an understanding of the subject matter and context, not just an understanding of the structure of sentences.