The science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs.

John McCarthy(Father of Artificial Intelligence)

The big picture

Artificial Intelligence is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, intelligent computer programs to be precise. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable.

Introduction

To make a complex task easier, has always been in the human nature. From the time we are born, we analyse, we learn and we use our knowledge to perform tasks. Once we do a task it seems easier the next time, but a brand new task always consumes a few brain cells.

This instinct of ours has bring us very deep in the sea of technology. First we created machines to perform specific tasks, then the computers came, which were capable of performing multiple but specific set of tasks. Then we thought how cool it would be if computer learned like a human child. It would learn from previous data same as a child learn from observing his elders. It would store the experience in the form of datasets same as a child would remember the previous experience.

This led us to the way of developing such machines that are capable of learning and just behaving like these have their own brain. This science of giving the machines the human-like intelligence is called the artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is based on the notion that human thought processes have the ability to both be replicated and mechanized.

History

The history of artificial intelligence may feel like a dense and impenetrable subject for people who aren’t well-versed in computer science and its subsets. Despite how mystifying and untouchable artificial intelligence may seem, when broken down, it’s a lot easier to understand than you might think.

The history of artificial intelligence dates back to the antiquity with philosophers mulling over the idea that artificial beings can exist in some fashion.

The surprising fact about artificial intelligence is that thinkers have been thinking about it hundreds of years earlier before there was even a word to describe it.

Types of Artificial Intelligence:

Artificial Intelligence type-1

1. Weak AI or Narrow AI:

It is focused on one narrow task. The phenomenon in which all rules and conditions are fed to machine which are important for performing a specific task. An example would be poker game. It cannot perform beyond its limitations as it is only trained to perform a specific task intelligently.

IBM’s Watson computer is also an example of this type of AI, it is created using the mixed approach of Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing.

2. General AI:

General AI is a type of intelligence which could perform any intellectual task with efficiency like a human. The idea behind the general AI to make such a system which could be smarter and think like a human by its own. Currently, there is no such system exist which could come under general AI and can perform any task as perfect as a human.

As systems with general AI are still under research, and it will take lots of efforts and time to develop such systems.

3. Super AI:

Super AI is a level of Intelligence of Systems at which machines could surpass human intelligence, and can perform any task better than human with cognitive properties. It is an outcome of general AI. Some key characteristics of strong AI include capability include the ability to think, to reason, solve the puzzle, make judgments, plan, learn, and communicate by its own. Super AI is still a hypothetical concept of Artificial Intelligence. Development of such systems in real is still world changing task.

Artificial Intelligence type-2: Based on functionality  

1. Reactive Machines

This is one of the basic form of AI. It doesn’t have past memory and cannot use past information for the future actions. An example would be IBM chess program that beat Garry Kasparov in the 1990’s.

2. Limited Memory

This type of AI machines have limited memory of past experience that is used to take future decisions. Apples’ chatbot Siri or Google’s google assistant are examples of this. Although the best example for this type of AI would be self-driving car.

3. Theory of Mind

This type of AI would be able to understand the emotion, belief, thoughts, expectations and be able to interact socially. There are many improvements and changes and developments in this field that are yet to be happened.

4. Self-Awareness

An AI machine that has its own conscious, Super intelligence, self-awareness and sentient.

Of course this kind of bot also doesn’t exist yet and if achieved it will be one of the milestones in the field of AI.

Major Goals

• Knowledge Reasoning
• Planning
• Machine Learning
• Computer Vision
• Robotics

Machine Learning:

It is a method where the target is defined and the steps to reach that target is learned by the machine itself by training.

The target is not achieved by explicitly specifying the details about it and coding it but it is just as we teach a child by showing multiple different picture of it and therefore allowing the machine to define the steps to identify it like an apple of an orange.

Natural Language Processing(NLP):

Natural language Processing is defined as the automatic manipulation of natural language like speech and text by the software. The best example of this is the email spam detection.

Vision:

this is defined as the ability of a machine or software that makes a machine recognise the objects. This is just like giving a machine the human eyesight or may be better vision than human eyes.

Robotics:

it is the field of AI dedicated to the detailed studies of making robots and then syncing them with the software. The best example of this would be Sophia. It can interact socially.

Benefits and risks of AI

Although AI makes out tasks a lot easier. But it goes both way there are many advantages and benefits of AI but there also some risks of AI.

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

Alan Perlis

northner

A technology enthusiast who loves to create and break things. Love to work on Linux, technology, and Computers.  I am a CyberSecurity aficionado, and wannabe wildlife Photographer constantly learning and experiencing new things.