This paper will try to act as an introduction to the vastworld of Artificial Intelligence. The objective is to familiarize the readerwith the field of AI and have a basic understanding of the core concepts. Wewill try to achieve this goal through an overview to AI and its definition.
Fora deeper understanding of the topic, an exploration of its history and how itcame to be is required. Additionally, practical applications and different usesof AI will be discussed in order to see how it fits together in today’stechnology. Furthermore, we will discuss about the advantages and disadvantagesof this technology and leave it up to the reader to decide the benefit ofArtificial Intelligence.1. IntroductionArtificial intelligence, unlike humans’ natural intelligence, is theintelligence reserved for machines. In AI research vocabulary, an intelligentdevice is one that can observe its environment and act accordingly in order toboost its success chances in a certain objective.
When a machine tries tosimulate cognitive functions of the human mind, the term “artificialintelligence” is applied.The AIeffect, a common phenomenon in the artificial intelligence field, is theremoval of some tasks from the field of AI as machines get more and morecapable and lower levels of intelligence are needed. As of 2017, skills likecompeting at strategy games, intelligent routing, autonomous cars, complex datainterpretations, etc.
are considered part of artificial intelligence.Artificial intelligence has two main subdivisions: StrongAI and Weak AI Strongartificial intelligence consists of the work that tries to completely mirror ahuman’s, even think like one. Weak artificial intelligence, on the other hand, onlytries to behave like humans, without thinking like them.
Yet another way to classify artificial intelligence isnarrow and general AI. We have narrow AI when we only have to complete acertain goal. General AI is when there is a need to reason.2. History of Artificial IntelligenceAI, as a field of studywas conceived in a workshop at Dartmouth College in 1956. The founders and theleaders of AI experiments were Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, John McCarthy,Marvin Minsky and Arthur Samuel. Together with their students, they madecomputers that could learn checker moves and over the years computers ended upoutsmarting the average person in the game.
The 1970s were a lethargicperiod for AI development. In 1974, the U.S and British governments stopped conductingAI experiments. This period is also known as “AI winter”.
In the 1980s, thesuccess of an AI program that could simulate the knowledge and analyticalskills of human experts compelled the U.S and British governments to furtherconduct AI research. Another reason for this was Japan’s fifth generationcomputer project. In 1985, the market of AI had gone past a billion dollars.However, in 1987, AI was put to rest, once again.
AI started being used moreand more extensively in many areas, during 1990s and the early 21stcentury. This was possible as a result of computational power increase, greaterpriority on problem solving and numerous links between AI and other scientific disciplines.Advantages and Disadvantages of AI
