Introduction
If I were to name a technology that completely changed the 21st century it would be artificial intelligence. AI is a part of our everyday life and that’s why I think it’s important that we understand the different concepts of artificial intelligence.
History of Artificial Intelligence
The concept of AI goes back to the classical ages under Greek mythology the concept of machines and mechanical men was well thought of
An example is Talos. Talos was supposedly a giant animated bronze Warrior who was programmed to guard the island of Crete.
Now let’s get back to the 19th century in 1950 Alan Turing proposed the Turing test. The Turing test basically determines whether or not a computer can intelligently think like a human being. The Turing test was the first serious proposal in the philosophy of artificial intelligence.
1951 marked the era for game artificial intelligence. This period was called game AI because here a lot of computer scientists developed programs for Checkers and for chess. However, these programs were later Rewritten and redone in a better way.
Evolution of AI
1956 marked the most important year for artificial intelligence. During this year John McCarthy first coined the term artificial intelligence. This was followed by the first AI laboratory which was set up in 1959. MIT AI lab was the first setup that was basically dedicated to the research of AI.
1960: The first robot was introduced to the General Motors Assembly line.
1961: the first AI chatbot called Eliza was introduced.
1997: IBM’s deep blue beats the world champion Gary Kasparov in the game of chess.
2005: marks the year when an autonomous robotic car called Stanley won the DARPA Grand Challenge.
In 2011 IBM’s question-answering machine Watson defeated the two greatest Jeopardy champions, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.
Since the emergence of artificial intelligence in the 1950s we have seen exponential growth in its potential.
AI covers domains such as machine learning, deep learning, neural networks natural language processing, knowledge-base expert systems, and so on.
What is AI
John McCarthy refined AI as the science and engineering of making intelligent machines. In other words artificial intelligence can also be defined as the development of computer systems that are capable of Performing tasks that require human intelligence such as decision-making, object detection, solving complex problems and so on.
Features of AI
- Decision Making
- Solving Complex Problems
- Object Detection
- High-Level Computation
- Predictions
Type of Artificial Intelligence
- Artificial Narrow Intelligence
- Artificial General Intelligence
- Artificial Super Intelligence
The types of AI are completely different from the stages of AI. So under the stages of artificial intelligence, we have artificial narrow intelligence, artificial general intelligence, and artificial superintelligence.
Artificial Narrow Intelligence
Artificial narrow intelligence, also known as weak AI, is the stage of artificial intelligence involving machines that can perform or near narrowly defined specific tasks. At this stage, the machines don’t possess any thinking ability they just perform a set of predefined functions. Examples of weak AI include Siri, Alexa, alpha, Sofia, self-driving cars, and so on.
Almost all the AI-based systems that are built to this date fall under the category of weak AI or artificial narrow intelligence.
Artificial General Intelligence
Artificial general intelligence is also known as strong AI. This stage is the evolution of artificial intelligence wherein machines will possess the ability to think and make decisions just like human beings. There are currently no existing examples of strong AI but it’s believed that we will soon be able to create machines that are as smart as human beings.
Strong AI is actually considered a threat to human existence by many scientists. This includes Stephen Hawkings, Stephen Hawkings quoted that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
Artificial Super Intelligence
Artificial superintelligence is that stage of AI when the capability of computers will surpass human beings. It is currently seen as a hypothetical situation as depicted in movies and science fiction books. You see a lot of movies that show that machines are taking over the world all of that is artificial superintelligence.
However such systems don’t currently exist. We don’t have any machine that is capable of thinking better than a human being or reasoning in a better way than a human. Artificial superintelligence basically any robot that is much smarter than humans.
Types of artificial intelligence based on the functionality of AI-based systems.
- Reactive Machine AI
- Limited Memory AI
- Theory of Mind AI
- Self Aware AI
Reactive machines AI
This type of AI includes machines that operate solely based on the present data and take into consideration only the current situation.
Reactive AI machines cannot form inferences from the data to evaluate any future actions. They can perform a narrower range of predefined tasks. An example of reactive AI is the famous IBM chess program that beat the world champion, Gary Kasparov. This is one of the most impressive AI machines built so far.
Limited memory AI
Limited memory AI can make informed and improved Decisions by studying past data from its memory. So such an AI has a short-lived or you can say a temporary memory that can be used to store past experiences and hence evaluate your future actions.
Self-driving cars are limited memory AI that use the data collected in the recent past to make immediate decisions. For example, self-driving cars use sensors to identify civilians that are crossing the road, they identify any steep roads or traffic signals and they use this to make better driving decisions. This also helps in preventing any future accidents.
Theory of Mind artificial intelligence
The theory of mind AI is a more advanced type of artificial intelligence. This category is speculated to play a very important role in Psychology. This type of AI will mainly focus on emotional intelligence so that human beliefs and thoughts can be better comprehended. The theory of Mind AI has not been fully developed yet but rigorous research is happening in this area.
Self-aware artificial intelligence
This type of AI is a little far-fetched but in the future achieving a stage of superintelligence might be possible. Geniuses like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawkings have constantly warned us about the evolution of AI.
The different domains or the different branches of artificial intelligence
So artificial intelligence can be used to solve real-world problems by implementing machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, robotics expert systems, and fuzzy logic. These are the different domains or you can say the different branches that AI uses in order to solve any problem.
Machine Learning
Machine learning is basically the science of getting machines to interpret process and analyze data in order to solve real-world problems. Under machine learning, there are supervised unsupervised and reinforcement learning.
Deep learning or neural networks
Deep learning is a process of implementing neural networks on high-dimensional data to gain insights and form Solutions. It is basically the logic behind the face verification algorithm on Facebook. It is the logic behind self-driving cars and virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa.
Natural language processing
Natural language processing refers to the science of drawing insights from natural human language in order to communicate with machines and grow businesses. An example of NLP is Twitter and Amazon.
Twitter uses NLP to filter out terroristic language in their tweets. Amazon uses NLP to understand customer reviews and improve user experience.
Robotics
Robotics is a branch of artificial intelligence that focuses on the different branches and applications of robots. AI robots are artificial agents which act in the real-world environment to produce results by taking some accountable actions.
Sofia the humanoid is a very good example of AI in robotics.
Fuzzy logic
Fuzzy logic is a Computing approach that is based on the principle of the degree of truth instead of the usual modern logic that we use which is basically Boolean logic. fuzzy logic is used in medical fields to solve complex problems which involve decision-making.
It is also used in automating gear systems in your cars.
Expert systems
An expert system is an EI-based computer system that learns and reciprocates the decision-making ability of a human expert. Expert systems use if-then logic Notions in order to solve any complex problem. They do not rely on conventional procedural programming. Expert systems are mainly used in Information Management they are seen to be used in fraud detection virus detection also in managing medical and hospital records.