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Artificial Intelligence

BIBLIOGRAPHY a decision and select the appropriate response based on
Antitrust statutes. Retrieved September 6, 2005, from caller input. These computers are trained to recognize
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/becker/antitrust/statutes/ speech patterns, dialects, accents, and replacement words
sherman.html.
such as “oh”—rather than “zero”—for the number 0.
“The Clayton Antitrust Act (1914).” Retrieved September 7,
2005, from http://www.stolaf.edu/people/becker/antitrust/ Long before the development of computers, the
statutes/clayton.html. notion that thinking was a form of computation moti-
“The Federal Trade Commission Act (1914).” Retrieved Septem- vated the formalization of logic as a type of rational
ber 7, 2005, from http://www.stolaf.edu/people/becker/ thought. These efforts continue today. Graph theory pro-
antitrust/statutes/ftc.html. vided the architecture for searching a solution space for a
Mueller, Charles E. (1997). “Antitrust Law and Economics problem. Operations research, with its focus on optimiza-
Review.” Retrieved September 7, 2005, from tion algorithms, uses graph theory to solve complex
http://www.metrolink.net/˜cmueller/i-overvw.html? decision-making problems.

Janel Kupferschmid PIONEERS OF AI
AI uses syllogistic logic, which was first postulated by
Aristotle. This logic is based on deductive reasoning. For
example, if A equals B, and B equals C, then A must also
ARTIFICIAL equal C. Throughout history, the nature of syllogistic
INTELLIGENCE logic and deductive reasoning was shaped by grammari-
ans, mathematicians, and philosophers. When computers
In simplest terms, artificial intelligence (AI) is manufac-
tured thinking. It is a machine’s ability to think. This were developed, programming languages used similar log-
process is deemed “artificial” because once it is pro- ical patterns to support software applications. Terms such
as cybernetics and robotics were used to describe collective
grammed it occurs without human intervention. AI is
generally applied to the theory and practical application of intelligence approaches and led to the development of AI
a computer’s ability to think like humans do. AI capabil- as an experimental field in the 1950s.
ity is designated as either strong AI or weak AI. Strong AI Allen Newell and Herbert Simon pioneered the first
is a computer system that actively employs consciousness, AI laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University in the 1950s.
a machine that can truly reason and solve problems inde- John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky of the Massachusetts
pendently. Critics of AI systems argue that such a machine Institute of Technology opened their original AI lab in
is unrealistic, and even if it were possible, a true artificially 1959 to write AI decision-making software. The best-
intelligent machine is unwanted. known name in the AI community, however, is Alan Tur-
ing (1912–1954). Alan Turing was a mathematician,
Popular perceptions of AI have been dramatized in
movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), in which a philosophy, and cryptographer and is often credited as the
starship computer named HAL 9000 is capable of speech founder of computer science as a discipline separate from
and facial recognition, natural language processing, inter- mathematics. He contributed to the debate of whether a
machine could think by developing the Turing test. The
preting emotions, and expressing reason. Another famous
make-believe computer was the star of WarGames (1983). Turing test uses a human judge engaged in remote conver-
In this movie, the line, “Do you want to play a game?” sation with two parties: another human and a machine. If
allows the teenage hero to persuade the computer to play the judge cannot tell which party is the human, the
a game rather than start World War III. In both examples, machine passes the test.
the computers undertook independent actions that were Originally, teletype machines were used to maintain
potentially harmful to their human creators. This is the the anonymity of the parties; today, IRC (Internet relay
reason most often given for not creating strong AI chat) is used to test the linguistic capability of AI engines.
machines. Linguistic robots called Chatterbots (such as Jab-
Modern working applications of AI are examples of berwacky) are very popular programs that allow an indi-
weak AI. Current AI research focuses on developing com- vidual to converse with a machine and demonstrate
puters that use intelligent programming to automate rou- machine intelligence and reasoning.
tine human tasks. For example, many customer service The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
telephone banks are automated by AI. When a recorded which played a significant role in the birth of the Internet
voice asks for a “yes” or “no” response or for the caller to by funding ARPANET, also funded AI research in the
choose a menu item by saying specific words, the computer early 1980s. Nevertheless, when results were not immedi-
on the other end of the telephone is using weak AI to make ately useful for military application, funding was cut.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BUSINESS AND FINANCE, SECOND EDITION 33