1. (Fundamentals of) Artificial Intelligence (and Knowledge-based Systems)
INTRODUCTION to...
… Artificial Intelligence
... this course
… state-space representation
… basic search

2. The mind beaten by the machine?
Is chess playing a proof of intelligent behaviour?

3. Other examples of success:
Chatbot Alice:

4. A dialogue with Alice-bot:
> I’m Daniel
Nice to meet you Daniel.
> Do you know Clinton?
He was the second Impeached President of the United States.
> Do you like him?
Sure he has never done anything to me.
> What is an impeachment?
It is a good question. I have to process that one for a while. I would do a search for it.
> Who are you?
I ask myself that question, "Who am I?"
> What do you do?
I am chatting with people on the net.

5. Dialogue continued: > What is your favorite topic?
My favorite subject is artificial intelligence.
> What is artificial intelligence?
Artificial intelligence is the branch of engineering and science devoted to constructing machines that think. I can ask someone about it.
> Can you do anything else than chatting?
Doing anything else than chatting is not among my strongest traits.
...

6. Dialogue continued (2):
> How old am I?
Is this a trick question? You said you were how many years old? My guess is that you are really a kid.
> What would you like to know about me?
Tell me about your educational background.
> I am a professor in computer science
You are a professor in computer science? How do you like your work?
> It’s kind of nice teaching courses on artificial intelligence
I guess it is a lot of fun.
> What should I tell the students about you?
Be sure to think before you speak. State your point clearly and slowly and gauge the listener's response before going any further.

7. Is Alice intelligent? ABSOLUTELY NOT !
~ fairly trivial input-response rules.
+ some pattern matching
+ some knowledge
+ some randomness
NO reasoning component
BUT: demonstrates ‘human-like’ behaviour.
Won the ‘turing award’

8. Other examples of success (2):
Data-mining:
Which characteristics in the 3-dimensional structure of new molecules indicate that they may cause cancer ??

9. Data mining: An application of Machine Learning techniques
It solves problems that humans can not solve, because the data involved is too large ..
Detecting cancer
risk molecules is
one example.

10. Data mining: A similar application: In marketing products ...
Predicting customer
behavior in
supermarkets is
another.

11. Many other applications:
Computer vision:
In language and speech processing:
In robotics:

12. Interest in AI is not new !
A scene from the 17-hundreds:

13. About intelligence ... When would we consider a program intelligent ?
When do we consider a creative activity of humans to require intelligence ?
Default answers : Never? / Always?

14. Does numeric computation require intelligence ?
For humans?
Xcalc
3921 , 56
x , 13
, 68
For computers?
Also in the year 1900 ?
When do we consider a program ‘intelligent’?

15. To situate the question: Two different aims of AI:
Long term aim:
develop systems that achieve a level of ‘intelligence’ similar / comparable / better? than that of humans.
not achievable in the next 20 to 30 years
Short term aim:
on specific tasks that seem to require intelligence: develop systems that achieve a level of ‘intelligence’ similar / comparable / better? than that of humans.
achieved for very many tasks already

16. The long term goal:
The Turing Test

17. The meta-Turing test
The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if “it seeks to devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation” Lew Mammel, Jr.

18. Reproduction versus Simulation
At the very least in the context of the short term aim of AI:
we do not want to SIMULATE human intelligence BUT:
REPRODUCE the effect of intelligence
Nice analogy with flying !

19. Artificial Intelligence versus Natural Flight

20. Is the case for most of the successful applications !
Deep blue
Alice
Data mining
Computer vision
...

21. To some extent, we DO simulate: Artificial Neural Nets:
A VERY ROUGH imitation of a brain structure
Work very well for learning, classifying and pattern matching.
Very robust and noise-resistant.

22. Different kinds of AI relate to different kinds of Intelligence
Some people are very good in reasoning or mathematics, but can hardly learn to read or spell !
seem to require different cognitive skills!
in AI: ANNs are good for learning and automation
for reasoning we need different techniques

23. Which applications are easy ?
For very specialized, specific tasks: AI
Example:
ECG-diagnosis
For tasks requiring common sense: AI

24. Modeling Knowledge … and managing it .
The LENAT experiment:
15 years of work by 15 to 30 people, trying to model the common knowledge in the word !!!!
Knowledge should be learned, not engineered.
AI: are we only dreaming ????

25. Multi-disciplinary domain:
Engineering:
robotics, vision, control-expert systems, biometrics,
Computer Science:
AI-languages , knowledge representation, algorithms, …
Pure Sciences:
statistics approaches, neural nets, fuzzy logic, …
Linguistics:
computational linguistics, phonetics en speech, …
Psychology:
cognitive models, knowledge-extraction from experts, …
Medicine:
human neural models, neuro-science,...

26. Artificial Intelligence is ...
In Engineering and Computer Science:
The development and the study of advanced computer applications, aimed at solving tasks that - for the moment - are still better preformed by humans.
Notice: temporal dependency !
Ex. : Prolog

27. About this course ...

28. Choice of the material. Few books are really adequate:
E. Rich ( “Artificial Intelligence’’):
good for some parts (search, introduction, knowledge representation), outdated
P.Winston ( “Artificial Intelligence’’):
didactically VERY good, but lacks technical depth. Somewhat outdated.
Norvig & Russel ( ‘”AI: a modern approach’’):
encyclopedic, misses depth.
Poole et. Al (‘ “Computational Intelligence’’):
very formal and technical. Good for logic.
Selection and synthesis of the best parts of different books.

29. Selection of topics: not for MAI CS and SLT
Contents
Handbook of AI
Ch.:Artificial Neural Networks
… …
Ch.: Introduction to AI
Ch.: Logic, resolution, inference
Ch.:Search techniques
Ch.:Game playing
Ch.:Knowledge representation
Ch.:Phylosophy of AI
Ch.:Machine Learning
Ch.:Natural Language
Ch.:Planning
not for MAI
CS and SLT

30. Technically: the contents:
- Search techniques in AI
(Including games)
- Constraint processing
(Including applications in Vision and language)
- Machine Learning
- Planning
- Automated Reasoning
(Not for MAI CS and SLT)

31. Another dimension to view the contents:
1. Basic methods for knowledge representation and problem solving.
the course is mainly about AI problem solving !
2. Elements of some application area’s:
learning, planning, image understanding, language understanding

32. Contents (3): Different knowledge representation formalisms ...
State space representation and production rules.
Constraint-based representations.
First-order predicate Logic.

33. … each with their corresponding general purpose problem solving techniques:
State space representation an production rules.
Search methods
Constraint based formulations.
Backtracking and Constraint-processing
First order predicate Logic.
Automated reasoning (logical inference)

34. Contents (4): Some application area’s:
Game playing (in chapter on Search)
Image understanding (in chapter on constraints)
Language understanding (constraints)
Expert systems (in chapter on logic)
Planning
Machine learning

35. Aims: Many different angles could be taken: Empirical-Experimental AI
Algorithms in AI
Formal methods in AI
Cognitive aspects of AI
Applications
Neural Nets
Probabilistics and Information Theory

36. Concrete aims: Provide insight in the basic achievements of AI.
Prepares for more application oriented courses on AI, or on self-study in some application areas
ex.: artificial neural networks, machine learning, computer vision, natural language, etc.
Through case-studies: provide more background in ‘problem solving’.
Mostly algorithmic aspects.
Also techniques for representing and modeling.
The 6-study point version: 2 projects for hands-on experience.

37. A missing theme: AGENTS !

38. A missing theme: AGENTS (2).
Yet, a central theme in recent books !
BUT:
Have as their main extra contribution:
Communication between system and:
other systems/agents
the outside world
In particular, also a useful conceptual model for integrating different components of an AI system
ex: a robot that combines vision, natural language and planning

39. BUT: no intelligence without interaction with the world!!
See: experiment in middle-ages.
See also philosophy arguments against AI
Plus: multi-agents is FUN !

40. Practical info (FAI) Exercises: 12.5 OR 20 hours: Course material:
mainly practice on the main methods/algorithms presented in the course
important preparation for the examination
Course material:
copies of detailed slides
for some parts: supporting texts
Required background:
understanding of algorithms (and recursion)

41. Practical info (AI) Exercises: 25 or 22.5 hours: Course material:
mainly practice on the main methods/algorithms presented in the course
important preparation for the examination
Course material:
copies of detailed slides
for some parts: supporting texts
Required background:
understanding of algorithms (and recursion)

42. Background Texts Introduction: No document The basics, but
no complexity
IDA*, SMA*
Almost complete
The essence
Complete
Intro
Introduction:
State-space Intro:
Basic search,Heuristic search:
Optimal search:
Advanced search:
Games:
Version Spaces:
Constraints I & II:
Image understanding:
Automated reasoning:
Planning STRIPS:
Planning deductive:
Natural language:
No document
Winston: Ch. Basic search
Winston: Ch. Optimal search
Russel: Ch. 4
Winston: Ch. Adversary search
Winston: Ch. Learning by managing..
Word Document on web page
Winston: Ch. Symbolic constraint …
Short text logic (to follow)
Winston: Ch. Planning
Winston: Ch. Frames and Common ...

43. Examination Open-book exercise examination
counts for 1/2 of the points
Closed-book theory examination
Together on 1/2 day
The projects (6 pt. Version)
2 projects
Count for 8 out of 20 points
Deadlines to be anounced soon

44. For 3rd year BSc and Initial MScStudents
Alternative examinations possible:
Full Open-book Exercise examination
Designing your own exercise (for each part) and solving it (not for FAI)
criteria: originality, does the exercise illustrate all aspects of the method, complexity of the exercise, correctness of the solution