Introduction to AI

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

We call ourselves Homo sapiens—man the wise—because our intelligence is so important

to us. For thousands of years, we have tried to understand how we think; that is, how a mere

handful of matter can perceive, understand, predict, and manipulate a world far larger and

more complicated than itself. The field of artificial intelligence, or AI, goes further still:

it attempts not just to understand but also to build intelligent entities.

AI is one of the newest fields in science and engineering. Work started after World War II, and the name itself was coined in 1956. AI still has openings for several full-time Einsteins and Edisons.

AI currently encompasses a huge variety of subfields, ranging from the general (learning and perception) to the specific, such as playing chess, proving mathematical theorems, writing

poetry, driving a car on a crowded street, and diagnosing diseases. AI is relevant to any intellectual task; it is truly a universal field.

One of the main reasons we want to study AI is to automate many things. We live in a world where:

We deal with huge and insurmountable amounts of data. The human brain can't keep track of so much data. Data originates from multiple sources simultaneously. The data is unorganized and chaotic. Knowledge derived from this data has to be updated constantly because the data itself keeps changing. The sensing and actuation has to happen in real time with high precision

Even though the human brain is great at analyzing things around us, it cannot keep up with the preceding conditions. Hence, we need to design and develop intelligent machines that can do this. 

We need AI systems that can:

Handle large amounts of data in an efficient way. With the advent of Cloud Computing, we are now able to store huge amounts of data. Ingest data simultaneously from multiple sources without any lag. Index and organize data in a way that allows us to derive insights. Learn from new data and update constantly using the right learning algorithms. Think and respond to situations based on the conditions in real time.

AI techniques are actively being used to make existing machines smarter, so that they can execute faster and more efficiently.