Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is not entirely unknown to the average individual. AI is depicted through the images of robots and human androids, machines that speak like people, and automatic applications. Some regard AI to be found in our own homes through the Internet and household appliances. AI, whether it surfaces in The Jetsons' maid or in the incredibly realistic David Swinton in Warner Brothers'A.I., is the science of our millennia.

Artificial intelligence is a relatively new science that has only recently emerged as an interdisciplinary study. It is very rarely taught at universities, yet many of the most prestigious schools in America host AI researchers. A clear definition of artificial intelligence is very rarely found, but according to Aaron Sloman, professor at the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham, England, it is the study of information. AI is, "the study of how information is acquired, stored, manipulated, extended, used, and transmitted, whether in machines, or humans or other animals" (Sloman, 1998, p. 1) Sloman claims that AI is the science of the manipulation of knowledge, the science that investigates both natural and artificial intelligence. With this definition in mind, it becomes easier to reject the conventional iconography that represents AI and begin to comprehend the magnitude and significance of the science.

History and uses:

In 1956, artificial intelligence was established as a scientific discipline on the theory that machines could simulate human learning and intelligence. The science has three phases of development: the Romantic Period (from 1956 to 1965), the Ice Age (from 1965 to 1980) and the Applications Period (1980 to present). The Romantic period included various mathematical programs that were developed. The Ice age developed programming languages such as LISP and PROLOG. Mathematical and logical models like the Robinson resolution were found. In the Applications period AI techniques in military, industry, and medicine have led the way to further investment in the science.

AI is ever-present in our society and it is speculated that in the future it will be found in every single household. The military uses AI applications in its weapons and aircraft. AI technology is found in medicine in the operating room where computer machinery, such as the joystick, is more commonly replacing the scalpel. AI in industry is less prevalent, however some scientists argue that such things as vending machines and the Internet operate on some level of AI science. Computer scientist Bohumir Stedron even postulates that in the year 2010 there will be a much greater merging of AI applications in technology and that intelligent computers will begin to replace and dominate education. He also speculates the emergence of DNA and antiviral computers.

Description and Endeavors:

Despite the mechanical processes of AI, the most significant of its endeavors is to emulate the human mind. The greatest obstacles for scientists are replicating the mind's ability of adaptation, logic, reasonability, and human emotion. With each progression of the science our society becomes closer to creating a fully realistic robotic human and it becomes closer to being further technologically dependent. According to Oliver Selfridge, of MIT, the chief essence of human intelligence is its ability to continue learning and adapting. He claims that machine learning is the most important aspect of AI science. The human's ability to learn behavior, cognition, symbolic manipulation and even goals are important objectives of AI science. Selfridge advises that AI software should be concerned with being changeable, rather than with satisfying demands.

Roger C. Schank, of Northwestern University, concurs that AI's primal concern is molding machines to learn and adapt as human. He informs that in order to do so machines have to commit actions, as humans do, and they have to be able to reflect upon their actions. They need a world to interact with.

Rodney Brooks, of MIT, assures that the brain is perhaps 50% devoted to perception. Another major obstacle for AI is the process of perception. Scientists have been able to compute and rival the neural systems of insects and small animals but their problems lie in reorganizing such to function as human perception does. Along with human emotion, perception is perhaps what most argue is unique to the human brain, but scientists are positive that they will be able to reproduce in a machine all of the processes of the human brain. James Trefil explains that such aspects of the human brain as consciousness, logic, intuition, and creativity are difficult to duplicate in machines. He explicitly differentiates the machine brain to the human one and further explains that a machine's methods bears very little resemblance to a human's, despite the endless endeavors to recreate a human machine.

So far, AI has been able to only mechanically emulate the process of logic and language. The study of language is of great concern to AI scientists who aim at reinventing the human. Computer languages were created using human communication as its framework. AI in its research has also inspired further work on such things as the neural nets of the human brain and the science in art. According to Herbert A. Simon of Carnegie Mellon University, the basic strategy of AI is to recreate more complex human tasks and show how computers are capable of performing them. AI is not merely a science of synthetics it is an interdisciplinary field of research.

Such sciences as linguistics, psychology, sociology, computer science, engineering, neuroscience, logic, biology, social sciences, computer science, software engineering, mathematics, and philosophy are all part of the disciplines that are encompassed by AI. Linguistics provides means by which computer communication and language is developed. Wolfgang Bibel, of Darmstadt University of Technology, claims that since natural intelligence is manifested in natural language, the study of linguistics is fundamental for realizing artificial intelligence. Psychology aids in the understanding of the human mind and thus can be applied to the machination of duplicating it. Psychologists draw on concepts found in AI and computer science regarding the thought process. Psychologists regard AI to be a semiotic science. They claim that its aim is to be able to, "specify the procedural complexity of thinking." (Boden, 1989, p. 164) Sociology brings about an understanding of the societies in which the human being functions. For a science so rich in technology the human being is a grand subject of study. AI's fascination with the human mind and its attempt to recreate it has spun controversies and various terror situations in which machines take over the human race.

Controversies:

The endeavors of AI science to create robotic-human applications have led to various ethical controversies. Since AI wasn't a science respected for its uncommon research, various technical and logical issues have been raised. According to Herbert A. Simon of Carnegie Mellon University, "AI has been thought controversial because it challenges the uniqueness of human thought..." (Simon, 2000, p. 1) Philosophers have argued that "something else" is involved in thinking that is not purely mechanical. This has been an argument that scientists reject because of its lack of concreteness. AI science has a fundamental belief that the human intellect and everything that revolves around it can be broken apart and duplicated, despite the difficulty of the process.

AI has spurred controversies surrounding the debate of whether intelligence is derived from logic or knowledge. Bruce G. Buchanan, of the University of Pittsburgh, explains that the Dendral program proved that computers could very simply reproduce human technical knowledge, even that of highly intelligent scientists.

Wolfgang Bibel explains that logic is a controversy in AI because of technical failures. One is a lack of a compilation of logical devices that are sufficient for practical applications. The other is the lack of integration of specialized logical devices in a single system. Logic is one of the obstacles that AI science faces.

In the 1970s Alan Bundy, of the University of Edinburgh, argued that general provers were often criticized. They were thought to be incapable of proving non-trivial theorems. These influenced more inference mechanisms in AI, which are in development to this day.

The Future of AI:

While Bohumir Stedron warns of such things as human rights for robots, Rodney Brooks, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, focuses on the economic implications of AI. He argues that scientific advances, as they are funded by the military, will create global billion dollar markets. With the investments placed in machines that will be able to produce human labor, such as factory and agricultural work, economic patterns will shift. He claims that AI, "will reorder the world labor markets that have developed over the last 50 years." (Brooks, 2004, p. 30) A change in immigration patterns will occur where people will move from developed countries to underdeveloped ones seeking for jobs. A massive shift of labor will occur. He postulates that these markets will emerge in Japan first, due to the growing demands of such jobs.

Stuart Russell, a professor of Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, explains that machines will influence the understanding of our culture and sociology. "What might happen is that as we understand better how to build these artificial systems we'll start to have theories that are powerful enough to explain some aspects of human cognition in ways that would influence people's understanding of culture and sociology." (Russell, 2004, p. 3) He believes that a stronger connection between the humanities and the sciences will come about as a result of studying disciplines to implement aspects of them in machines. He also argues that in the near future more complex hypotheses will be constructed using probabilistic modeling and machine-learning techniques. Computers will provide more useful and powerful tools for people of all disciplines. Despite the integration the future seems to hold for AI applications, Russell pursues that we are still in very early days of integration and he cautions that there needs to be extremely serious thought as to how technology should be used and how it is to be controlled.

Conclusion:

AI science is an integral part of our social construct because of its future influences on our economy, society, and existence. Some scientists speculate that we will have to accommodate a new race of robots. Others claim that AI will affect the welfare of the human race through its production of highly developed weapons. Whatever the case may be, AI is sure to be pervasive in our future lives.

In its development, AI sparked many science investigations, such as the further development of research into neurology and the study of logics. As the future unfolds, AI concerns itself with creating a machine that can not only aid but also accompany the human. The technology offered by intelligent computers is allowing us to travel space more freely and securely, it is increasing academic tools for students and professors, it is developing a new market in which billions of dollars worth of investment will be utilized, and it is aiding diagnostic science find cures for illnesses.

The fruits of AI, however, also have horrific effects on our society. As machines continue to replace labors, jobs will decrease for people of developed countries. The need to be educated will increase but will be rivaled with the scientific capacity of duplicating human intelligence to create machines that are much smarter than the creators themselves. The potential dangers in AI weaponry can threaten the security of our species, as we are currently seeing dramatic concerns for such things as nuclear weapons. AI will also change our grounded perceptions of the human being as a unique animal when scientists prove that all of the processes that make us intelligent are purely mechanical and able to be reproduced.

AI will make our society rich in intellect, yet understanding where research is focused leads one to conclude and concur with the indubitable war between man and machine that many films and books have hypothesized.

References

Boden, M.A. (1989). Educational implications of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence in psychology (pp. 161-175). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Brooks, R. (2004). The robots are here. Technology Review, 30.

Hearst, M., & Hirsh, H. (Ed.). (2000) AI's greatest trends and contraversies. Retrieved April 7, 2004 from http://www.computer.org/intelligent/articles/AI_controversies.htm

Russell, S. (2004). Stuart Russell on the future of artificial intelligence. Ubiquity, 4.

Sloman, A. (1998). What is artificial intelligence? Retrieved April 7, 2004, from http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/misc/aiforschools.html

Stedron, B. (2004). Forecasts for artificial intelligence. The Futurist, 25.

Trefil, J. (1997). Why the brain is not a computer. Are we unique? (pp. 147- 155). New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.