What is AI?

What is AI?

AI stands for Artificial Intelligence.

The term artificial means that the intelligence is not human.

AI is a computer program (or a collection of computer programs) that performs a specific task (or a set of tasks).

AI may also be referred to as machine intelligence as the AI computer program is found in a machine, like a computer or a robot.

EXAMPLES & USES OF AI

AI is used for a wide variety of purposes in our society.

  1. Other AI performs physical tasks, such as driving a car.
  2. Some AI performs digital tasks, such as playing chess.

DRIVERLESS CARS

Many of today’s cars already use sensors to automate some driving tasks.

Such as automated parallel parking:

And adaptive cruise control:

RESEARCH

What would change if most automobiles were driverless?

AI CHESS

Alan Turing wrote a computer program in 1951 that could play a game of chess.

The video below shares scenes from the Imitation Game, a movie about Alan Turing, which gives you a sense of his life and work.

In the 1980s, the then world champion Garry Kasparov made the claim that that AI chess programs could never defeat top grandmasters.

However, in 1997, Kasparov was beaten by IBM’s Deep Blue.

Today, the top chess AI programs are able to beat the top chess grandmasters in every game they play.

In the video below, Garry Kasparov compares IBM’s Deep Blue (the chess program that beat Kasparov in 1997) and AlphaZero, which “learned” to play chess on its own in a few hours and can beat any human chess player.

RESEARCH

How does AI learn to play chess?
How do chess grandmasters use AI to improve their chess playing?

MORE EXAMPLES

There are many more uses of AI in our society.

The video below gives a quick glimpse of AI in today’s world.

RESEARCH

Select and research an AI use of interest. What may be the benefits? What may be issues with its use?