Slashdot Mirror
Artificial Intelligence Overview
spiderfarmer writes: "Well, it feels slightly odd to suggest one of my own articles, but here goes. I've recently completed a brief overview of the current state of AI. The article concept was focused on Cyc, but scope creep being what it is, I ended up doing an overview of the entire field. Some of the Slashdot gang were fairly helpful in pointing me towards experts who would talk to me and towards white papers and books I might not have otherwise found. So, I thought they might be interested in how I put all the information together."
are they perl programmers?
> Cyc, (pronounced Psych)
Well, that clears it up.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
What amatuerisness.
Ventriloquist: Hey, cool dog. Mind if I speak to him?
Farmer: This dog don't talk!
Ventriloquist: Hey dog, how's it going?
Dog: Doin alright
Farmer: (Extreme look of shock)
Ventriloquist: Is this your owner? (pointing at farmer)
Dog: Yep.
Ventriloquist: How's he treat you?
Dog: Real good. He walks me twice a day, feeds me great food, and takes me to the lake once a week to play.
Farmer: (Look of disbelief)
Ventriloquist: Mind if I talk to your horse?
Farmer: Horses don't talk!
Ventriloquist: Hey horse, how's it goin?
Horse: Cool.
Farmer: (an even wilder look of shock)
Ventriloquist: Is this your owner? (pointing at farmer)
Horse: Yep.
Ventriloquist: How's he treat you?
Horse: Pretty good, thanks for asking. He rides me regularly, brushes me down often, and keeps me in the barn to protect me from the elements.
Farmer: (total look of amazement)
Ventriloquist: Mind if I talk to your SHEEP?
Farmer: (gesticulating wildly, and hardly able to talk)...... Them sheep ain't nothin but liars!!!
The classical approach to AI was the symbolic, which grows out of Turing's work. Allen Newell and Herbert Simon of Carnegie Mellon University (not even mentioned) were the foremost promoters of this approach, which they called physical symbol systems. Other early AI pioneers include Marvin Minsky, who should probably be mentioned in any article on AI (but was not in this one).
The author barely mentions the neural network, or connectionist approach. These did not start with the PDP group, as she suggests, but with Frank Rosenblatt of Cornell, with Perceptrons. The most exciting research in this area deals with recurrent neural networks, which exhibit chaotic behavior. This is where I personally think that real intelligence could come from, because it is a more natural model of our brain's operations. The foremost researcher in this domain is Hava Siegelmann of Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel. She promotes the idea of analogical systems, which she has proven have more theoretical power than the Turing machine model.
If you want an introduction to AI, skip this article. A good place to start might be a scientific journal, or the comp.ai faq. Her resources are not very good either, so don't bother.
Ceci n'est pas un post
My name isn't really Jenny....
Distributed AI
Is this when Slashdot announces "Birth of the first real AI" and someone posts:
Wow! What about a Beowulf Cluster of these!!
Me : Can u imagine a Beowulf cluster of yourself?
Cyc : -1 Troll.
This is not so much an overview of the current state of AI as it is a general description of the different fields of AI. However, it's a pretty good description and could be a useful introduction to someone who knows nil about the field and is wary about buying their first expensive textbook.
However, I would hope that most of the Slashdot crowd already knows that the field of AI, while successful, isn't really about conciousness right now (though to many it is a distant goal).
The best way to really get an Artificial Intelligence overview is to first know the basics, and then flip through all of the major AI journals in the past five years.
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe