AI / Artificial Intelligence for Not Yet Techies

Artificial Intelligence / AI is the science of studying intelligence in humans to reproduce it in computers and use it to help us solve problems. According to prominent Artificial Intelligence / AI researcher John McCarthy, it is "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence."

This goal has occupied some scientists beginning even before the advent of computers. The English mathematician Alan Turing may have been the first. He gave a lecture on Artificial Intelligence / AI in 1947. Other pioneers included John von Neumann and Nobert Wiener.

If a person communicated with a computer and another person via two different computer terminals, if that person could not determine which terminal had a human being at the other end, the computer could be considered.

I hate to argue with brilliance, but I'm sure there're many people now who wouldn't even try or care to detect this difference. How can you detect AI / Artificial Intelligence if you don't have much natural human intelligence?

If the human being behind one terminal was motivated to be undetectable, they could certainly imitate computer-like responses.

Although Artificial Intelligence / AI has inspired science fiction novels where computers because so complex that they made the leap from nonliving machine to consciousness, I doubt anybody is seriously trying to bring HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey or Mike in Robert Heinlein's THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS to life.

Artificial Intelligence / AI is now more than the obsession to create a Grand Master level chess-player computer (it has done that, though they still haven't been able to create a computer that can play a good game of Go, a difficult Asian game) is being harnessed in specific applications to help improve our lives.

Ascent's software factors in all the myriad of ever-changing details. Flight schedules, employee problems, snow delays, maintenance checks and, since September 11, tracks which jets need security sweeps. Because there are thousands of ever-changing variables, the software uses programming "genetic algorithms" that use natural selection, mutating and crossbreeding a pool of suboptimal scenarios. The program knows how to discover the optimal arrangement without -- as would be the case in conventional programs -- trying every possible combination.
That's Artificial Intelligence / AI in action. Ascent raises productivity by up to 30 percent at every airport where it's been implemented.

Artificial Intelligence / AI has not changed the old computer equation GI = GO. FocalPoint, which examines Pap smears for signs of cervical cancer, was developed by asking the best pathologists what they look for when identifying possible cancerous cells. The program must be "trained" before it's released to the client, because allowing input by incompetent lab techs can reduce its effectiveness.

So Artificial Intelligence / AI programs must still have their goals and priorities programming into them by humans. Intelligence has been defined as the ability to solve problems in the world. Seems to me that what will continue to differentiate human from computer intelligence is the ability to choose goals and which problems need to be solved.

Next: Adobe Photoshop