Artificial Intelligence free essay sample

AI redirects here. For other uses, see Ai (disambiguation). For other uses, see Artificial intelligence (disambiguation). Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology and a branch of computer science that studies and develops intelligent machines and software. Major AI researchers and textbooks define the field as the study and design of intelligent agents, where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success. John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1955,[3] defines it as the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.[4] AI research is highly technical and specialised, deeply divided into subfields that often fail to communicate with each other.[5] Some of the division is due to social and cultural factors: subfields have grown up around particular institutions and the work of individual researchers. AI research is also divided by several technical issues. There are subfields which are focused on the solution of specific problems, on one of several possible approaches, on the use of widely differing tools and towards the accomplishment of particular applications. We will write a custom essay sample on Artificial Intelligence or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The central problems (or goals) of AI research include reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects.[6] General intelligence (or strong AI) is still among the fields long term goals.[7] Currently popular approaches include statistical methods, computational intelligence and traditional symbolic AI. There are an enormous number of tools used in AI, including versions of search and mathematical optimization, logic, methods based on probability and economics, and many others. The field was founded on the claim that a central ability of humans, intelligence—the sapience of Homo sapiens—can be so precisely described that it can be simulated by a machine.[8] This raises philosophical issues about the nature of the mind and the ethics of creating artificial beings, issues which have been addressed by myth, fiction and philosophy since antiquity.[9] Artificial intelligence has been the subject of tremendous optimism[10] but has also suffered stunning setbacks.[11] Today it has become an essential part of the technology industry and many of the most difficult problems in computer science.[12] Main articles: History of artificial intelligence and Timeline of artificial intelligence Thinking machines and artificial beings appear in Greek myths, such as Talos of Crete, the bronze robot of Hephaestus, and Pygmalions Galatea.[13] Human likenesses believed to have intelligence were built in every major civilization: animated cult images were worshiped in Egypt and Greece[14] and humanoid automatons were built by Yan Shi, Hero of Alexandria and Al-Jazari.[15] It was also widely believed that artificial beings had been created by JÄ bir ibn HayyÄ n, Judah Loew and Paracelsus.[16] By the 19th and 20th centuries, artificial beings had become a common feature in fiction, as in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein or Karel ÄÅ'apeks R.U.R. (Rossums Universal Robots).[17] Pamela McCorduck argues that all of these are examples of an ancient urge, as she describes it, to forge the gods.[9] Stories of these creatures and their fates discuss many of the same hopes, fears and ethical concerns that are presented by artificial intelligence. Mechanical or formal reasoning has been developed by philosophers and mathematicians since antiquity. The study of logic led directly to the invention of the programmable digital electronic computer, based on the work of mathematician Alan Turing and others. Turings theory of computation suggested that a machine, by shuffling symbols as simple as 0 and 1, could simulate any conceivable act of mathematical deduction.[18][19] This, along with concurrent discoveries in neurology, information theory and cybernetics, inspired a small group of researchers to begin to seriously consider the possibility of building an electronic brain.[20] The field of AI research was founded at a conference on the campus of Dartmouth College in the summer of 1956.[21] The attendees, including John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell and Herbert Simon, became the leaders of AI research for many decades.[22