Artificial Intelligence
Created | Updated Mar 8, 2002
Not to be confused with Artificial Insemination, this is the discipline whose ultimate goal is to fertilise a computer with some level of intelligence.
The history of AI (as it is widely known) goes way back to the dawn of computers. The ball was pretty much started rolling by Alan Turing. His famous Test involved being able to tell whether or not a machine could convincingly hold a conversation via a computer terminal. If the machine had enough knowledge of the english language, the weather and the intricacies of sex to convince the user they would not be out of place down the local pub then the machine was deemed to be intelligent. This thought experiment has been a real meat pie for philosophers, providing them with decades of amusement.
AI rests on the implicit assumption, widely held, that the brain is a computer. It contains things called 'facts' with which we reason using logical rules to navigate about in our everday life. The theory goes that we have knowledge of our actions and it is by constructing and executing plans we achieve our goals.
For example, if our goal was to drink beer then we might find that to drink beer we need to be in a pub with some money. So one goal becomes two. If we find we have no money then we need to go to a cashpoint with our plastic. If we do not have our card we need to find it. This may entail turning our house upside down, checking pockets or panicking, and so on.
