What is AI (and what is it not)?
What would be a definition of AI? In general, it means a machine that exhibits some characteristics of intelligence—thinking, reasoning, planning, learning, and adapting. It can also mean a software program that can simulate thinking or reasoning. Let’s try some examples: a robot that avoids obstacles by simple rules (if the obstacle is to the right, go left) is not an AI. A program that learns by example to recognize a cat in a video, is an AI. A mechanical arm that is operated by a joystick is not AI, but a robot arm that adapts to different objects in order to pick them up is AI.
There are two defining characteristics of artificial intelligence robots that you must be aware of. First of all, AI robots learn and adapt to their environments, which means that they change behaviors over time. The second characteristic is emergent behavior, where the robot exhibits developing actions that we did not program into it explicitly. We are giving the robot controlling software that is inherently non-linear and self-organizing. The robot may suddenly exhibit some bizarre or unusual reaction to an event or situation that seems to be odd, or quirky, or even emotional. I worked with a self-driving car that we swore had delicate sensibilities and moved very daintily, earning it the nickname Ferdinand after the sensitive, flower loving bull from the cartoon, which was appropriate in a nine-ton truck that appeared to like plants. These behaviors are just caused by interactions of the various software components and control algorithms, and do not represent anything more than that.
One concept you will hear around AI circles is the Turing test. The Turing test was proposed by Alan Turing in 1950, in a paper entitled Computing Machinery and Intelligence. He postulated that a human interrogator would question an hidden, unseen AI system, along with another human. If the human posing the questions was unable to tell which person was the computer and which the human was, then that AI computer would pass the test. This test supposes that the AI would be fully capable of listening to a conversation, understanding the content, and giving the same sort of answers a person will. I don’t believe that AI has progressed to this point yet, but chat bots and automated answering services have done a good job of making you believe that you are talking to a human and not a robot.
Our objective in this book is not to pass the Turing test, but rather to take some novel approaches to solving problems using techniques in machine learning, planning, goal seeking, pattern recognition, grouping, and clustering. Many of these problems would be very difficult to solve any other way. A software AI that could pass the Turing test would be an example of a general artificial intelligence, or a full, working intelligent artificial brain, and just like you, a general AI does not need to be specifically trained to solve any particular problem. To date, a general AI has not been created, but what we do have is narrow AI, or software that simulates thinking in a very narrow application, such as recognizing objects, or picking good stocks to buy.
What we are not building in this book is a general AI, and we are not going to be worried about our creations developing a mind of their own or getting out of control. That comes from the realm of science fiction and bad movies, rather than the reality of computers today. I am firmly of the mind that anyone preaching about the evils of AI or predicting that robots will take over the world has not worked or practiced in this area, and has not seen the dismal state of AI research in respect of solving general problems or creating anything resembling an actual intelligence.