ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capacity of a computer or robot under computer control to carry out operations typically performed by intelligent entities. The phrase is commonly used to describe the endeavor of creating artificial intelligence systems that include human-like cognitive functions, like reasoning, meaning-finding, generalization, and experience-based learning. It has been shown that computers are capable of performing extremely complicated jobs, including finding proofs for mathematical theorems or playing chess, with remarkable proficiency ever since the digital computer was developed in the 1940s. Nevertheless, despite ongoing improvements in computer memory and processing power, no software can yet fully mimic human adaptability over a larger range of areas or in jobs requiring a great deal of common knowledge.
However, in certain limited applications, such as medical diagnosis, computer search engines, voice or handwriting recognition, and chatbots, artificial intelligence has evolved to the point where some programs can perform at the same levels as human experts and professionals.
Methods and goals in AI
Symbolic vs. connectionist approaches
Two different, and sometimes opposing, approaches are used in AI research: the symbolic (or "top-down") approach and the connectionist (or "bottom-up") approach. To reproduce intelligence, the top-down approach analyzes cognition in terms of symbol processing, which is where the symbolic label originates and does so independently of the biological makeup of the brain. The connectionist moniker comes from the bottom-up method, which entails building artificial neural networks that mimic the structure of the brain.
Early milestones in AI
The first AI programs
Christopher Strachey, who went on to become the director of the University of Oxford's Programming Research Group, wrote the first successful artificial intelligence program in 1951. The University of Manchester in England used a Ferranti Mark I computer to run Strachey's checkers (draughts) software. This software was able to play a full game of checkers at a respectable pace by the summer of 1952.
Arthur Samuel's checkers program, created in 1952 for the IBM 701 prototype, was also the first artificial intelligence (AI) application to be executed in the United States. Over several years, Samuel significantly expanded Strachey's checker's program by taking over its core elements. He included elements that allowed the software to learn from mistakes in 1955. Samuel improved his software by adding methods for both rote learning and generalization, which ultimately helped it defeat a previous Connecticut checkers champion in a single game in 1962.
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