Glossary
- algorithm
- A formal procedure that always produces a correct or optimal
result. An algorithm applies a step-by-step procedure that
guarantees a specific outcome or solves a specific problem.
The procedure of an akglgorithm performs a computation in a finite amount of time.
Programmers specify the algorithm the program will follow then they develop a
conventional program (Raoul, p.8).
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- Artificial Intelligence
- AI, the field of computer science that seeks to understand and
implement computer-based technology that can simulate
characteristics of human intelligence. A common goal of
artificial intelligence work involves developing computer programs capable
of learning from experience in order to solve problems. Other noteworthy
pursuits of the field include programs that understand natural language and
programs that interpret visual scenes. Method of symbolically representing
knowledge, in a way that the computer can use the symbols to make inferences,
is a central task of any artificial intelligence project. Specific examples of
programs that simulate a form of intelligence include programs that can
diagnose diseases, plan the synthesis of complex chemical compounds, solve
differential equations in symbolic form, analyze electronic circuits,
understand limited amounts of human speech or natural language text, or write
small computer programs to meet formal specifications. Work on building AI
systems proceeds form a growing body of computation techniques that have
become widely applied AI principles. A larger scientific goal to establish an
information-processing theory of intelligence underlies much AI research.
The benefits of such a science of intelligence include guidelines for
designing intelligent machines and models of human or other animal's
intelligent behaviour. A general theory of intelligence remains a goal of AI
and the field therefore often interests other researchers such as cognitive
psychologists who are attempting to understand natural intelligence. Currently,
much AI research is focused on the engineering goal of building intelligent
machines (Raoul, p.13).
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- Artificial Neural Networks
- Artificial Neural Networks are
constructed from many individual processors, called processing units.
Each processing unit is a simple device, each of whose output is a
simple reaction to its combined inputs (Brookshear, p.72).
- Babbage, Charles
- Charles Babbage (1792 - 1871) of England, designed a computing machine
based on the technology of gears. He envisioned a machine that would print
output values on paper so that the possibility of errors in transcribing would
be eliminated. His machine was designed so that the sequence of steps the
machine was to perform could be communicated to the machine in the form of
holes in paper cards (Brookshear, p.6).
- Central Processing Unit (CPU)
- Part of the computer that consists of
the control unit, arithmetic-logic unit, and primary storage. It executes a
program (O'Leary, Williams, & O'Leary, p.251).
- Database
- A collection of integrated data that
gives different people access to the same data to use for different purposes
(O'Leary, Williams, & O'Leary, p.251).
- eight puzzle
- A square tray containing eight square tiles of equal size,
numbered from 1 to 8. The space for the ninth tile is vacant.
The 8-puzzle is a well-known, straight-forward example of
state-space representation. A tile may be moved by sliding it vertically or
horizontally into the empty square. The puzzle presents the problem of
transforming some particular tile configuration into another given tile
configuration. A particular configuration of tiles constitutes a state. Each
state can be presented in a 3 X 3 matrix. The operators corresponding
to possible moves, can be defined with separate operators for each of the
tiles 1 to 8. A more concise definition is made possible by viewing the
empty square as the object to be moved and stating the operators in terms
of the movements of the square. In this formulation, only four operators are
used:
UP move the blank up one square
DOWN move the blank down one square
LEFT move the blank left one square
RIGHT move the blank right one square
An operator may be inapplicable in certain states, as when it would move the
blank outside the tray of tiles (Raoul, p.59).
If you would like to try the eight puzzle game, click here
- expert system
- A computer program with a knowledge base of expertise
capable of reasoning at the level of an expert in some given
domain; a computer program that can perform at, or near, the
level of a human expert. Evaluations of MYCIN judge its competence at or near,
the level of a human expert. Evaluations of MYCIN judge its competence at or
near that of highly specialized physicians. Configuration systems like XCON
(RI) may well exceed human competence. The term is often used to refer to any
computer system that was developed by means of a loose collection of techniques
associated with AI research. In effect, any computer system developed by means
of an expert system building tool qualifies as an expert system, even if the
system was so narrowly constrained that it could never be said to rivaledd
human expert. Some prefer to reserve the term 'expert system' to denote
systems that truly rival human experts and use 'knowledge system' when
speaking of small systems developed by means of AI techniques. As computer
programs that use expert knowledge to attain high levels of performance in a
narrow problem area, expert systems typically represent knowledge symbolically,
examine and explain their reasoning processes, and address problem areas that
require years of special education, training, and experience for humans to
master. The user an expert system typically interacts with the system in a
consultation dialogue, just as he or she would interact with a human who
possesses some type of expertise. For example, the user would explain the
problem, perform tests suggested by the posed solutions. In sum, expert systems
can be viewed as an instrument providing a medium for both human experts, who
interact with the system in a knowledge acquisition mode, and human users, who
interact with the systems in a consultation mode (Raoul, p.64).
- General Problem Solver
- One of the earliest AI programs. It was
developed by Newell, Shaw, and Simon beginning in 1957. The research had a dual
intention: It was aimed at devising machines to solve problems requiring
intelligence and at developing a theory of how human beings solve such problems.
GPS was the successor of the earlier Logic Theorist program. The name 'General
Problem Solver' derives from the fact that GPS was the first problem-solving
program to separate its general problem-solving methods from knowledge specific
to the type of task at hand. In effect, the problem-solving part of the system
gave no information about the kind of task being worked on; task-dependent
knowledge was collected in data structures forming a task environment. Among the
data structures were objects and operators for transforming the objects. A task
was normally given to GPS as an initial object and a desired object, into which
the initial object was to be transformed. GPS objects and operators were similar
to the states and operators of a state-space problem representation. However,
the general problem-solving technique introduced by GPS does not fit neatly
into either the state-space or the problem-reduction representation formalisms.
It differs from a standard statespace search in the way it decides what path to
try next. This technique is a major theoretical contribution to the program, and
is called Goal State
- The end node in a graph. A solution to a
state space problem is a finite sequence of applications of operators
that changes an initial state into a goal state. A state-space problem is
then the triple (S,O,G) where the complete specification of a state-space problem
has three components. One is a set O of operators or operator schemata. In addition,
one must define a set S of one or more initial states and find a predicate defining a set G of goal states (Smith, p.79).
- Heuristics
- A rule of thumb or other device that
simplifies, reduces, or limits search in large problem spaces; in particular,
searches for solution in domains that are difficult and poorly
understood. Unlike algorithms, heuristics do not
guarantee correct solutions. The most frequently used dictionary definition for
heuristic as an adjective is 'serving to discover'. As a noun, the term refers
to an obscure branch of philosophy, specifically the study of methods and rules
of discovery and invention. In defining heuristic as a term used to describe
Intelligence
- Intellect, understanding; quickness of
understanding, sagacity; rational being (The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary,
2ndEd., p.436).
- Logic Theorist
- A program written in 1956 by Newell, Shaw,
and Simon of the Rand Corporation and the Carnegie Institute og Technology. It
was one of the first programs in which Long-term memory
- The segment of memory that contains all of
the information that is not currently being processed. In humans, the part of
memory that contains all the information that is not currently being
processed but that can be recalled at will (Smith, p.114).
- Means-End Analysis
- A problem-solving technique that differs
from standard state-space search in that it does not select an operator on
the basis of immediate availability, but rather it determines the difference
between the current task-domain situation and the current goal and then selects
the operator that will most significantly reduce that difference. If the operator
is not immediately applicable subgoals are set up to modify the current problem
state so that the operator may be applied (Smith, p.119).
- Neuron
- Nerve cell with its appendages, the
basic structural unit of the nervous system (The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary,
2nd Ed., p.568). "Neurons are believed to be the nature's switching circuits"
(Brookshear, p.71).
- Parallel Processing
- An architecture for computers that enables them to run several programs simultaneously. Parallel processing involves several central processors installed in the computer and simultaneously processing information instead of the sequential processing used in the conventional, von Neumann type of computer architecture. In sum, parallel processing is the operation of a computer in which two or more programs are executed concurrently. As an aid to artificial intelligence applications where cross-referencing, indexing, and list processing are required, parallel processing enhances time and memory economies (Smith, p.135).
- Program
-
1. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages.
2. An exercise in experimental epistemology.
3. A form of art, ostensibly intended for the instruction of computers, which is nevertheless almost
inevitably a failure if other programmers can't understand it.
(found at The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing)
- Psychology
- Science of nature, functions, and
phenomena of human mind and conduct; introspective analysis of mental processes
(The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, 2nd Ed. p.681).
- Recursion
- Defining an item in terms of itself. Recursive functions are functions that can call themselves. They involve operations that are defined in terms of themselves. For example, the factorial function, N!, on the positive integers is defined as 1 when N=1 and otherwise N*(N-1)! (Smith, p.160).
- Short Term Memory
-
The portion of human memory that people actively use when thinking about a problem Short-term memory is analogous to the random-access memory (RAM) of computers. Random-access memory contains all the data that are instantly available to the system. The content of human short-term memory is usually conceptualized in terms of chunks. Most cognitive theories hold that human short-term memory can contain and manipulate about four chunks at one time (Smith, p.178).
- Simulation
- An AI technique that uses a model of intelligent human behaviour in order to determine if the computer will exhibit the same intelligent behaviour as a human (Smith, p.179).
- Start State
- The first state examined by a problem-solver (Smith, p.186).
- State
- A data structure in a state-space representation, which gives a description of the problem at a particular point in the search process (Smith, p.186).
- Towers of Hanoi
- A recursive problem-solving puzzle. A tower is formed by transferring a stack of disks on a peg onto another peg, for example, from peg A onto peg B, moving only one disk at a time and never placing a larger disk on top of a smaller one. One peg may used for a temporary storage. A recursive solution to the problem begins with noticing that to move a tower of just two disks, one would move the smaller disk from peg A to peg C, and then move the big disk from peg A to peg B. The general problem of moving a tower of N disks can now be reduced to three steps: Transfer the subtower of disks 1 through N-1 from peg A to peg C, move the biggest disk, N, from peg A to peg B, and then transfer the subtower back from peg C to peg B (Smith, p.199).
- Turing, Alan
- Alan Turing, in 1950, recognized the
illusive nature of intelligence and proposed a test (now known as the Turing
Test) for detecting intelligence within a machine (Brookshear, p.363).
- Turing Machine
- A universal, non-numerical model of computation. It can recognize the language generated by a type O grammar (Smith, p.202).
- Turing Test
- The Turing Test was developed by Alan
Turing. Turing's proposal was to allow a human, whom we call the interrogator,
to communicate with a test subject by means of a typewriter system without
being told whether the test subject was a human or a machine. In this
environment, a machine would be declared intelligent in the event that the
interrogator was not able to distinguish it from a human. As of yet, machines
have not been able to pass the Turing test, although surprising results have
been achieved (Brookshear, p.363).
- Rogerian Therapy
- The therapy assists a person in
unlocking his or her own dilemma with a minimum of intrusion from the
therapist. Rogers defines psychotherapy as 'the releasing of an already
existing capacity in a potentially competent individual, not the expert
manipulation of a more or less passive personality' (1959, p.221). The therapy
is called client-directed or client-centered because it is the client who does
whatever directing is necessary. Rogers feels strongly that 'expert
interventions' of any sort are ultimately detrimental to a person's growth
(Frager and Fadiman, p.349).
- Weizenbaum, Joseph
- Joseph Weizenbaum developed a program
called DOCTOR -- a version of the more general system called ELIZA. This
interactive program was designed to project the image of a Rogerian analyst
conducting a psychological interview; the computer played the role of analyst
while the user played the patient. Internally, all that DOCTOR did was
restructure the statements made by the patient according to some well-defined
rules and direct them back to the terminal screen. Weizenbaum's purpose in
developing DOCTOR dealt with the study of natural language communication.
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