ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Artificial Intelligence in Perspective

Artificial Intelligence systems include the following to develop computer systems and machines that demonstrate characteristics of intelligence:
 People  Procedures  Hardware  Software  Data  Knowledge

Researchers, scientist and experts on how humans think are often involved in developing this systems.

The objective of AI
The objective of contemporary AI systems is not to REPLACE HUMAN DECISION MAKING COMPLETELY , but TO REPLICATE IT FROM CERTAINTYPES OF WELL-DEFINED PROBLEMS. As with other information systems, the overall purpose of artificial applications in business is to help the organization achieve its goals.

The Nature of Intelligence

Some of the specific characteristics of INTELLIGENT BEHAVIOR include the ability to do the following:
 Learn from experience  Apply knowledge acquired from experience  Handle complex situation  Solve problems when important information is missing  Determining what is important  The ability to reason and think  Reacting quickly and correctly to a new situation  Understanding visual images  Processing and manipulating symbols  Being creative and imaginative  Using heuristics

Learn from Experience

Being able to learn from past situations and events is a key component of intelligent behavior and is a natural ability for humans who learn by trial and error. However, learning from experience is not natural for computer systems. This ability must be carefully programmed into the system. Today, researchers are developing systems that have this ability. For instance, some AI programs, such as computerized chess games, can learn to improve their game while they play human competitors.

Apply knowledge acquired from experience

In addition to learning from experience, people apply what they have learned to new settings and circumstances. In a number of cases, individuals have taken what they have learned and succeeded with in one industry and applied it to another.

Handle complex situations

Humans are always involved in complex situations. World leaders face difficult political decisions regarding world conflict, global economic conditions, hunger and starvation, and natural disasters. In a business setting top level managers and executives are faced with a complex market , difficult and challenging competitors, intricate governmental regulations and demanding work force. Even the best human experts make mistakes in dealing with these types of situations. Developing computer systems that can handle perplexing situations requires careful planning and elaborate computer programming.

Solve problems when important information is missing

The essence of decision making is dealing with uncertainty. Quite often, decisions must be made even when we are lacking information or have inaccurate information, because obtaining complete information is costly impossible. Today, AI systems can make important calculations, comparisons, and decisions even when missing information.

Determining what is important

Knowing what is truly important is the mark of a good decision maker. Every day we are bombarded with faces and must process large amounts of data, filtering out what is unnecessary. Determining which items are crucial can make the difference between good decisions and those that will ultimately lead to problems or failures. Computers, on the other hand, do not have this natural ability. Developing programs and approaches to allow computer systems and machines to identify important information is not a simple task.

The ability to reason and think

Although people do not always use a logical approach, it is certainly in our power to do so. Developing computer systems that can reach logical conclusions from information is a much more complex task. Things that are simple for child to do, such as assembling the blocks of a puzzle, can be extremely complex for even sophisticated computers.

Reacting quickly and correctly to a new situation

A small child, for example, can look over a ledge or a drop-off and know not to venture too close. The child reacts quickly and correctly to a new situation. Computers, on the other hand do not have this ability without complex programming.

Understating visual images

interpreting visual images can be extremely difficult, even for sophisticated computers. People and animals can look at objects interacting in our environment and understand exactly what is going on. For instance, we can see a man sitting at a table and know that he has legs and feet that we cannot see. Being able to understand and correctly interpret visual images is an extremely complex process for computer systems. Moving through a room of chairs, tables, and other objects can be trivial for people, but extremely complex for machines, robots, or computers. Such machines requires an extension of understanding visual images, called perceptive system. Having a perceptive system allows a machine to approximate the way human sees, hear, and feel objects.

Processing and manipulating symbols

 People see, manipulate, and process symbols every day. Visual

images provide constant stream of information to our brains. By contrast, computers have difficulty handling symbolic or processing or reasoning. Although computers excel at numerical calculations, the aren t as good at dealing with the symbols and three dimensional objects. Recent developments in machine-vision hardware and software, however, are allowing some computers to process and manipulate symbols on a limited basis.

Being creative and imaginative

Throughout history, some people have turned difficult situations into advantages by being creative and imagination. For instances, when shipped a lot of defective mints with holes in the middle, an enterprising entrepreneur decided to market these new mints as Lifesavers instead of returning them to the manufacturer. Ice-cream cones were invented in Europe when an imaginative store owner decided to wrap ice cream waffle from his grill. Developing new and exciting products and services from existing (perhaps negative) situation is a human characteristic. Few computers have ability to be truly imaginative or creative in this way.

Using heuristics
When faced with complex situations, people use heuristics (rules of thumb arising from experience), or even guesses, in making decisions. In searching a job, we may decide to limit our search to a certain region of the country or certain types of firms. In a manufacturing setting, a corporate president may decide to look at only certain locations for a new plant. We make these types of decisions using general rules of thumb, without completely searching all alternatives and possibilities.

Figure 11.1
Attribute the ability of the following: Acquire a large amount of external information Use sensors (eyes, ears, touch, smell) Be creative and imaginative Learn from experience Be forgetful Make complex decisions Be adaptive Use of variety of information sources Transfer information The cost of acquiring intelligence Natural Intelligence (Human) High High High High High Low High High Low High Artificial Intelligence (Machine) Low Low Low Low Low High Low Low High Low

The above list of traits only partially defines intelligence. Unlike virtually every other field of information systems research in which the objectives can be clearly defined, the term intelligence is a formidable stumbling block. One of the problems in artificial intelligence is arriving at a working definition of real intelligence against which to compare the performance of an artificial intelligence system.

The Difference Between Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Since the term artificial intelligence was defined in the 1950 s, experts have disagreed about the difference between natural and artificial intelligence. For instance, is there a difference between carbon life (human or animal life) and silicon life (a computer chip) in terms of behavior? Today, there are profound differences are declining in number (Table 11.1). One of the driving forces behind AI research attempt to understand how humans actually reason and thinking. It is believed that the ability to create machines that can reason will only be possible once we truly understand our own process for doing so.

Figure 11.1 A conceptual model of artificial intelligence

Artificial Intelligence

Vision Systems

Robotics

Expert Systems

Natural Language processor

A conceptual view of Artificial Intelligence

AI is a broad field that includes several key components, such as expert systems, robotics, vision systems, natural language processing, learning systems, and neural networks (Figure 11.1). Many of these areas are related; advances in one can occur simultaneously or result in advances in others.
 Expert systems  Robotics  Vision systems  Natural language processing  Learning systems  Neural networks

Expert Systems
An expert systems acts or behaves like a human expert in a field or area. Because of their many business applications.

Robotics
Robotics involves developing mechanical or computer devices to paint cars, make precision welds, and perform other task that require a high degree of precision or are tedious or hazardous for humans.

Vision Systems
Vision systems include hardware and software that permit computers to capture, store, and manipulate visual images and pictures.

Natural Language Processing

Natural language processing allows the computer to understand and react to statements and commands made in a natural language, such as English.

Learning Systems
Learning systems, a combination of software and hardware that allows the computer to change how it functions or reacts to situations based feed back it receives.

Neural Networks
Neural network is a computer system that can act like or simulate the functioning of human brain. Neural networks can process many pieces of data at once and can learn recognize patterns. The systems then program themselves to solve related problems on their own . Some of the specific features of neural networks include:
   

The ability to receive information even if some of the neural nodes fail. Fast modification of stored data as a result of new information. The ability to discover relationships and trends in large databases. The ability to solve complex problems for which all of the information is not present.

An Overview of Expert Systems

An expert system acts like or behaves like a human expert in a field or area. Computerized expert systems have been developed to diagnose problems, predict future events, and assist in designing new products and systems. Like human experts, computerized expert systems use heuristics, or the thumb rule, to arrive at conclusions or make suggestions. Like the other systems thus far discussed, expert systems supports decision making and value-added business process in an organization. While transaction processing and management information systems provide printed reports, and decisions support systems let decision makers investigate decision alternatives and consequences, an expert system actually solves some aspect of the problem for the decision maker.

Characteristics of an Expert System

              

Explain their reasoning or suggest decisions. Display Intelligent behavior. Manipulate symbolic information and draw conclusions. Draw conclusions form complex relationships. Provide portable knowledge. Can deal with uncertainty. Not widely used or tested. Difficult to use. Limited or relatively narrow problems. Cannot readily deal with mixed knowledge. Possibility of error. Cannot refine own knowledge base. Difficult to maintain. May have high development costs. Raise legal and ethical concerns.

Explain their reasoning or suggested decision.

The ability to explain its reasoning process can be the most valuable feature of computerized expert systems. The user of the expert system thus gains access to the reasoning behind the conclusion.

Display intelligent behavior

Considering a collection of data, an expert system can propose new ideas or approaches to the problem solving.

Manipulate symbolic information and draw conclusions

People are accustomed to working with visual images; one day expert systems will be able to mimic this behavior. Symbols on the computer screen, illustrations in a textbook, and engineering drawings and diagrams for a manufacturing plant are a few examples.

Draw conclusions from complex relationships

Expert systems can evaluate data related in highly complex ways to reach conclusion and find solutions to problems.

Provide portable knowledge

One unique capability of expert systems is that they can be used to capture human expertise that might otherwise be lost.

Can deal with uncertainty

One of an expert system s most important features is its ability to deal with knowledge that is incomplete or not completely accurate. The system deals with this problem through the use of satisficing and heuristics.

Not widely used or tested

At this time, we are at the early stages of expert systems usage. Even though there are successes, expert systems are not used in a large number of organization. In other words, they have not widely tested in a corporate setting.

Difficult to use
Some expert systems are difficult to control and use. In some cases, the assistance of computer personnel or individuals trained in the use of the expert systems is required to help the user get the most from the systems.

Limited to relatively narrow problems

While some expert systems can perform complex analysis, other are limited to simple problems. Furthermore, many problems solved by expert systems are not that beneficial in business settings.

Cannot readily deal with mixed knowledge

Expert systems cannot easily handle a knowledge base that has a mixed representation. Knowledge can be represented through defined rules, through comparison to similar cases, and in various other ways. One expert system in one application might not be able to deal with knowledge that combined both rules and cases.

Possibility of error
While some expert systems have limited abilities to learn from experience, the primary source of knowledge is human expert. Of this knowledge is incorrect or incomplete, it will affect the system negatively.

Cannot refine own knowledge base

Expert systems are not capable of acquiring knowledge directly. A programmer must provide instructions to the system that determine how the system is to learn from experience.

Difficult to maintain
Related to the above point is the fact that expert systems can be difficult to update. Some are not responsive or adoptive to changing conditions. Adding new knowledge and changing complex relationships may require sophisticated programming skills.
 May have high development cost  Raise legal and ethical concerns

Capabilities of expert systems

Compared to other types of information systems, expert systems offer a number of powerful capabilities and benefits. For example, one expert system, called XCON, is often used in designing computer system configurations because it consistently does a better job than human beings. As in this instance, some capabilities of expert systems include:  Superior problem solving  The ability to save and apply knowledge and experience problems  Reduce response time for complex problems  The ability to look at problems for a variety of perspectives Expert systems can be used to solve problems in every field or discipline, and can assist in all stages of problem solving process. Past success have shown that expert systems are good in strategic goal setting, planning, design, scheduling, monitoring, and diagnosis (Figure 11.2).

Strategic goal setting Planning Design Decision making Monitoring Diagnosis

Figure 11.2 solutions offered by expert systems

Decision-making support
Expert systems have provided this type of support for many individuals and organizations. Acting as advisors or counselors, these systems can suggest possible alternatives, way of looking at problems, and logical approaches to the decision-making process. It has been shown that expert systems can improve the learning process for those who are not as experienced in decision making.

Strategic goal setting

Strategic goals provide a framework for all other activities throughout the organization. Expert systems can suggest strategic goals. Strategic goals can include identifying opportunities in the market place, analyzing the strengths of the existing organization, determining the power and position of competitors, and understanding the existing labor force.

Planning
Expert systems have been employed to assist in the planning process. The ability to reach overall corporate objectives, the impact of plans in organizational resources, and the ways in which specific plans will help an organization compete in market place can be investigated via expert systems.

Product design
Designing new products and services requires experience, judgment, and an understanding of the marketplace. A number of expert systems have been developed to assist designing a variety of products such as computer chips and systems. These types of expert systems use general design principles, an understanding of manufacturing procedures, and a collection of designing rules.

Quality control and monitoring

Computerized expert systems can assist in monitoring various systems and proposing solutions to system problems. Expert systems can also be used to monitor product quality. When machines are malfunctioning, the expert system can assist in determining possible causes.

Diagnosis
Monitoring and diagnosis go hand and hand. Monitoring determines the current state of a system; diagnosis looks at the causes and proposes solutions.

When to Use Computer Systems

Sophisticated expert systems can be difficult, expensive, and time consuming to develop. This is especially true for large expert systems implemented on mainframes. Thus, it is important to make sure potential benefits are worth the effort, and that various expert system characteristics are balanced in terms of cost, control, and complexity. The following is a list of factors that normally make expert systems worth the expenditure of time and money.
 A high potential payoff or significantly reduced downside risk  The ability to capture and preserve irreplaceable human expertise  The ability to develop a system more consistent than human experts  Expertise needed at a number of locations at the same time  Expertise needed in a hostile environment that is dangerous to

human health
 The expert system solution can be developed faster than the

solution from human experts

 Expertise needed for training and development so as to share the

wisdom and experience of human experts with a large number of people

Components of an Expert System

An expert system consists of a collection of integrated and related components, including a knowledge base, an inference engine, an explanation facility, a knowledge base acquisition base acquisition facility, and a user interface. A typical expert system is shown in Figure 11.3. in this figure, the user interacts with the user interface, which interacts with the interference engine. The interference engine interacts with other expert systems components. These components must work together in providing expertise and guidance in the decision-making process. This section briefly introduces you to the roles and features of these important components.

Explanation facility

Inference engine

Knowledge base

Knowledge base acquisition facility

User interface

Experts

User

Figure 11.3 Components of an expert system.

The Knowledge Base

The knowledge base stores all relevant information, data, rules, cases, and relationships used by the expert system. A knowledge base must be developed for each unique applications. Knowledge bases, however, go far beyond simple facts, also storing relationships, rules or frames, and cases. In other cases, rules suggest certain conclusions, based on a set of given facts. In many instances, these rules are stored as if-then statements. Cases can also be used. This technique involves finding instances, or cases, that are similar to the current problem and modifying the solutions to these cases to take into account any difference between the previously solved cases stored in the computer and the current situation or problem.

Purpose of a knowledge base

The overall purpose of the knowledge base is to hold the relevant facts and information for the specific expert system. A knowledge base is similar to the total sum of a human expert s knowledge and experience gained through years of work in a specific area or discipline. The goal of the system is to capture as much experience and knowledge as possible.

Assembling human experts

One challenge in developing a knowledge base is to assemble the knowledge of multiple human experts . Typically, the objective of building a knowledge base is to integrate the knowledge of individuals with similar expertise. An alternative is to integrate multiple types expertise into knowledge base, which can be much more difficult.

Continuation of assembling human experts

A knowledge base that contains information from numerous experts can be extremely powerful and accurate in terms of its predictions and suggestions. Unfortunately, human experts can disagree on important relationships and interpretations of data. This presents a dilemma for designers and developers of knowledge bases and expert system in general. Some human expert are more expert than the others; their knowledge, experience, and information are better developed and more accurately represent reality. When human experts disagree on important points, it can be difficult for expert systems developers to determine which rules and relationships to place in the knowledge base.

The use of fuzzy logic

Another challenge for expert system designers and developers is capturing knowledge and relationships that are not precise or exact. Computers typically work with numerical certainty; certain input values will always result in the same output. In the real world, as you know from experience, this is not always the case. To handle this dilemma, a specialty research area in computer science, called fuzzy sets or fuzzy logic , has been developed. Research into fuzzy sets has been going on for the decades, but its application to the expert systems is just beginning to show results in a variety of areas. Another example of fuzzy logic involves unclear terms, like tall or many . Fuzzy logic entails dealing with ambiguous criteria or probabilities and events that are not mutually exclusive. Fuzzy logic theory allow developers of expert system knowledge bases to incorporate interpretations and relationships that are not completely precise or known.

The semantic network

In the case of known relationships, a number of approaches can be used to store knowledge, facts, and relationships in a knowledge base. A semantic network is a collection of items or nodes linked together to show the relationship between items in the knowledge base (Figure 11.4).
Patty Stuart

Apartment

Student

Chicago

De Paul University

1719 Swann St.

Finance

Figure 11.4 A semantic network demonstrating the relationship between items in a knowledge base that contains information on the individual Patty Stuart.

Continuation of the semantic network

As you can see, this semantic network is centered around Patty Stuart. She has an apartment in Chicago and is a student at DePaul University, majoring in finance. Notice that a semantic network can show inheritance . This means that some nodes take on inherit the characteristics of other nodes. For example a student takes exams and completes assignments, and therefore, Patty Stuart take exams and completes assignments. An apartment requires that the renter pays rent, and therefore Patty Stuart pays rent. In this case, Patty Stuart inherits the characteristics of a student and a renter.