Chapter one

AI Introduction
Objective
To understand AI and related concept (Knowledge
base and intelligent system)
Understand the components of AI system
Get a feel of application areas of AI
Get a feel of scholars view to define AI
Briefly discuss the difference between Expert
system and other systems
 Data, Information, and Knowledge
• What is Data and Information? Are they different
from Knowledge?
• Data: Unorganized and
unprocessed facts; static; a set of
discrete facts about events
• Information: Aggregation of data
that makes decision making easier
• Knowledge is derived from
information in the same way
information is derived from data; it
is a person’s range of information
 What is Knowledge
• Knowledge includes facts about the real world
entities and the relationship between them
– It is an Understanding gained through experience
– familiarity with the way to perform a task
– an accumulation of facts, procedural rules, or heuristics

• Characteristics of Knowledge:
– It is voluminous in nature and requires proper
structuring.
– It may be incomplete and imprecise.
– It may keep on changing (dynamic).
 Types (Categorization) of Knowledge
• Shallow (readily recalled) and deep (acquired through
years of experience)
– necessary to make decision/solve problem in complex situations

• Procedural (repetitive, stepwise) versus Episodically

(grouped by episodes or cases)

• Explicit (already represented/documented) and tacit

(embedded in the mind)
– Up to 95% of information is preserved as tacit knowledge
 Explicit and Tacit Knowledge

• Explicit (knowing-that)
knowledge:
– knowledge codified and digitized
in books, documents, reports,
memos, etc.

• Tacit (knowing-how)
knowledge:
– knowledge embedded in the
human mind through experience
and jobs
 Knowledge base
• Knowledge base is used to store facts and rules.
• In order to solve problems, the computer needs
an internal model of the world.
– This model contains, for example, the description of
relevant objects and the relations between these
objects.
– All information must be stored in such a way that it
is readily accessible.
– Various methods have been used for KR, such as
logic, semantic networks, frames, scripts, etc...
 Knowledge base systems (KBSs)
• Deal with treating knowledge and ideas on a computer.
– Emphases to the importance of knowledge.

• Use inference to solve problems on a computer.

– Knowledge-based systems describes programs that reason
over extensive knowledge bases.

• Have the ability to learn ideas so that they can obtain

information from outside to use it appropriately.
– The value of the system lies in its ability to make the workings
of the human mind understandable and executable on a
computer.
 Attributes of KBS
• Learn
–The more you use knowledge, the smarter they get and the
smarter you get, too
• Improve with use
–Knowledge is enhanced rather than depleted when used and they
grow up instead of being used up
• Anticipate
–Knowing what you want, KBS recommend what you want next
• Interactive
–There is two-way communication between you and KBS
• Remember
–KBS record and recall past actions to develop a profile
• Customize
–KBS offer unique configuration to your individual specifications in
real time at no additional cost
 AI vs. KBS
• Knowledge based system is part of Artificial
Intelligence
• AI also requires extensive knowledge of the
subject at hand.
– AI program should have knowledge base
– Knowledge representation is one of the most
important and most active areas in AI.
– AI programs should be learning in nature and
update its knowledge accordingly.
 Intelligence
Intelligence is the capability of observing, learning,
remembering and reasoning.
Intelligence is a general mental capability that involves the
ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly,
comprehend ideas and language, and learn.
Intelligence draws on a variety of mental processes,
including memory, learning, perception, decision-
making, thinking, and reasoning.
Memory of Intelligent system is used to store
knowledge base which is the key for success for
artificial intelligent systems.
AI attempts to develop intelligent agents.
 Characteristics of Intelligent system

• Use vast amount of knowledge

• Learn from experience and adopt to changing
environment
• Interact with human using language and speech
• Respond in real time
• Tolerate error and ambiguity in communication
 Human Intelligence
How do people Reason?
 They create categories
 They use specific rules
– if ‘a’ then ’b’
if ‘b’ then ‘c’
abc
 They use Heuristics - “Rule of thumb”
 They use Past Experience – “CASES”
- Similarities of current and previous case
- Store cases using key attributes
 They Use “Expectations”
 How does our brain work when we solve a problem?
 Do we think it over and suddenly find an answer?
 What do we do when solving a complicated factorization problem, a
puzzle or a mystery?
 Artificial Intelligence

• AI is the branch of Computer Science that deals with

ways of:
– representing knowledge using symbol rather than numeric
value and with rule-of-thumb and method of processing
information

• AI is the effort to develop computer based system that

behave as human.
–Such system should be able to learn Natural Language.
–Able to do text processing, communicate in natural language
and speech
 Views of AI
• AI is found on the premise that:
– workings of human mind can be explained in terms of
computation, and
– computers can do the right thing given correct premises
and reasoning rules.

Views of AI fall into four categories:

Thinking humanly Thinking rationally

Acting humanly Acting rationally
 Views of defining AI
• What is AI (Artificial Intelligence)
– Different scholars define AI differently

(A) AI as a system (B) AI as a system

that think humanly that think rationally

Concerned with Concerned with

thought processing behaviors of agents
and reasoning

(C) AI as a system (D) AI as a system

that Act humanly that Act rationally
 Views of defining AI
measures success of AI in
terms of human being
performance

(A) AI as a system (C) AI as a system

that think humanly that Act humanly

measures success of AI in terms of

ideal concept of intelligence
(rationality)

(B) AI as a system (D) AI as a system

that think rationally that Act rationally
 Thinking humanly: The Cognitive Modeling

• Reasons like humans do

–Programs that behave like humans
• Requires understanding of the internal activities of the
brain
–see how humans behave in certain situations and see
if you could make computers behave in that same
way.
Example. write a program that plays chess.
–Instead of making the best possible chess-playing
program, you would make one that play chess like
people do.
 Acting humanly: The Turing Test
Can machines act like human do? Can machines
behave intelligently?
• Turing Test: Operational test for intelligent behavior
– do experiments on the ability to achieve human-level
performance,
– Acting like humans requires AI programs to interact with
people
• Suggested major components of AI: knowledge,
reasoning, language understanding, learning
 Acting humanly: Turing Test
 Turing (1950) on his famous paper "Computing machinery and
intelligence":
 "Can machines think?"  "Can machines behave intelligently?"
 Operational test for intelligent behavior: the Imitation Game

Predicted that by 2000, a machine might have a 30% chance

of fooling a person for 5 minutes
Anticipated all major arguments against AI in following 50
years
Active areas of research to achieve this: Machine learning,
NLP, Computer vision, etc
Thinking Rationally: The Laws of Thought
• A system is rational if it thinks/does the right thing
through correct reasoning.

• Aristotle: provided the correct arguments/ thought

structures that always gave correct conclusions given
correct premises.
– Abebe is a man; all men are mortal; therefore Abebe is
mortal
– These Laws of thought governed the operation of the mind
and initiated the field of Logic.
 Acting rationally: The rational agent
• Doing the right thing so as to achieve one’s goal,
given one’s beliefs.
• AI is the study and construction of rational agents
(an agent that perceives and acts)
• Rational action requires the ability to represent
knowledge and reason with it so as to reach good
decision.
– Learning for better understanding of how the
world works
 History of AI

• Formally initiated in 1956 and the name AI was coined

by John McCarthy.
• The advent of general purpose computers provided a
vehicle for creating artificially intelligent entities.
–Used for solving general-purpose problems

• Which one is preferred?

–General purpose problem solving systems
–Domain specific systems
 History of AI
• Development of knowledge-based systems: the key
to power
– Performance of general-purpose problem solving methods
is weak for many complex domains.
– Use knowledge more suited to make better reasoning in
narrow areas of expertise (like human experts do).
– Early knowledge intensive systems include:
• The Dendral program (1969): solved the problem of inferring
molecular structure (C6H13NO2).
• MYCIN (1976): used for medical diagnosis.
• etc.
 History of AI
• Shifts from procedural to declarative programming
paradigm.
– Rather than telling the computer how to compute a
solution, a program consists of a knowledge base of facts
and relationships.
– Rather than running a program to obtain a solution, the
user asks question so that the system searches through the
KB to determine the answer.
• Simulate human mind and learning behavior (Neural
Network, Belief Network, Hidden Markov Models,
etc. )
 Applications of AI and KBS
Solving problems that required thinking by humans:
• Playing games (chess, checker, cards, ...)
• Proving theorems (mathematical theorems, laws of
physics, …)
• Classification of text (Politics, Economic, sports, etc,)
• Writing story and poems; solving puzzles
• Giving advice in medicine, law, … (diagnosing diseases,
consultation, …)
How to make computers act like humans?
The following sub-fields are emerged
• Natural Language processing (enable computers
communicate in human language, English, Amharic, ..)
• Knowledge representation (schemes to store information,
both facts and inferences, before and during interrogation)
• Automated reasoning (use stored information to answer questions
and to draw new conclusions)
• Machine learning (adapt to new circumstances and accumulate
knowledge)
• Computer vision (recognize objects based on patterns in the
same way as the human visual system does)
• Robotics (produce mechanical device capable of controlled motion;
which enable computers to see, hear & take actions)

• Is AI equals human intelligence ?

 Programming paradigms
• Each programming paradigms consists of two aspects:
–Methods for organizing data/knowledge,
–Methods for controlling the flow of computation

• Traditional paradigms:
Programs = data structure + algorithm

• AI programming paradigms:
Programs = knowledge structure + inference mechanism
 Basic Kinds of Systems
• System is a set of components that interact to
each other in a logical way to achieve specific
goals.

• There are different types of system based on

the services, the user type, and the method of
operations

• Some of the systems includes:

– Information Systems
– Database Management System
– Information Retrieval System
– Expert System
 Expert system
• An expert system, also known as a knowledge based
system,
• a computer program that contains some of the subject-
specific (domain specific) knowledge of one or more
human experts.

• a system with two basic components:

• Knowledge base, which model the knowledge of an
expert in the area under consideration
• Inference engine

• When it is used by non expert user, it can serve as an

expert that guide the user to make an expert decision.
(doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc)
 Expert system
– Examples:
• Dendral, MYCIN, PUFF, ELIZA, BTDS, etc.

• Dendral expert system:

– The primary aim to aid organic chemists with
identification of unknown organic molecules by
analyzing information from mass spectrometry graphs
and the knowledge of chemistry
 Expert system
• MYCIN:
• Written in LISP around 1970s and derived from Dendral
expert system
• was designed to diagnose infectious blood diseases and
recommend antibiotics, with the dosage adjusted for
patient's body weight
• It would query the physician/patient running the
program via a long series of simple yes/no or textual
questions.
• At the end, it provides
• a list of possible cause bacteria ranked from high to low based
on the probability of each diagnosis,
• its confidence in each diagnosis' probability
• the reasoning behind each diagnosis
• It has around ~50 rules
 Expert system
• PUFF:
– PUFF can diagnose the presence and severity of lung
disease and produce reports for the patient's file

– Is an Expert System that interprets lung function test

data and has become a working tool in the pulmonary
physiology lab of a large number of hospital
 Expert system
• ELIZA :
• ELIZA is a very well-known artificial intelligence
program designed to emulate a Rogerian
psychotherapist.
• The basic elements of Carl Rogers' new way of therapy
was to have a more personal relationship with the
patient, to help the patient reach a state of realization
that they can help themselves
• ELIZA was showcased for a number of years at the
MIT AI Laboratory.
• ELIZA has no reasoning ability, cannot learn
• ELIZA only appears to understand because "she" uses
canned responses based on keywords, as well as string
substitution
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUMAN BEINGS AND
ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS
Human Brain  Computers
 Natural device  Non-natural device
 Self-willed and creative
 Limited creativity
 Basic unit – neuron
 Basic unit – RAM
 Storage device –
electrochemical  Storage device is electromechanical
 Low crunching  High crunching
 Advanced detective reasoning  Elementary detective reasoning
 Lower speed  High speed
 Emotion-driven  Non-emotional
 Limited volume
 Higher volume
 Fuzzy logic
 Numeric (binary) logic
 What computers can do better
• Numeric computations
• Information storage
• Repetitive operation
 How do AI differ from Human Intelligence

• The successful AI systems are neither artificial nor

intelligent
• The successful AI is based on:
– Human expertise
– Knowledge
– Selected reasoning pattern
 Problems of AI:
• The following points are taken as drawbacks of
Artificially Intelligent systems:
– AI do not come up with new and novel solutions
– Existing AI systems try to reproduce the expertise
of humans, but do not behave like human experts
– Lack of common-sense
– Reasoning: the human intelligence performs
better in this respect