Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a field of research in computer science that develops and studies methods and software that enable machines to perceive their environment and use learning and intelligence to take actions that maximize their chances of achieving defined goals.

Goals

The general problem of simulating (or creating) intelligence has been broken into subproblems. These consist of particular traits or capabilities that researchers expect an intelligent system to display. The traits described below have received the most attention and cover the scope of AI research.

Reasoning and Problem-Solving

Early researchers developed algorithms that imitated step-by-step reasoning that humans use when they solve puzzles or make logical deductions.

Knowledge Representation

An ontology represents knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts. Knowledge representation and knowledge engineering allow AI programs to answer questions intelligently and make connections between seemingly unrelated concepts.

Planning and Decision-Making

Planners are designed to generate a sequence of actions to achieve a goal.

Techniques

AI draws upon various techniques, including:

Search and Optimization

State space search and local search methods are used to find the optimal solution by searching through the solution space.

Logic

Formal logic is used to represent and reason about knowledge and uncertainty.

Probabilistic Methods for Uncertain Reasoning

Probability theory is used to deal with uncertain or incomplete information.

Classifiers and Statistical Learning Methods

Classifier algorithms are used to classify data into different categories based on learning from past data.

Artificial Neural Networks

Artificial neural networks are used to mimic the structure and function of the human brain to recognize patterns and make decisions.