Introduction to AI: Foundational Concepts

What is Intelligence?

Humans have been developing machines which can make their lives easier. Machines are made with an
intent of accomplishing tasks which are either too tedious for humans or are time consuming. These
drastic technological advancements lead us to recognize one key concept: the concept of Artificial
Intelligence.

What is Artificial Intelligence anyway? Well, the answer lies in the term itself. If we break up this term
up, we get the words “Artificial” and “Intelligence”. Artificial is something which is man-made, which
does not occur naturally.

According to researchers, intelligence is the ‘ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as
knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviours within an environment or context.’
In other words, we may define intelligence as:
• Ability to interact with the real world
o To perceive, understand and act
▪ Example: Speech Recognition – Understanding and synthesis
▪ Example: Image Recognition
▪ Example: Ability to take action: to have an effect
• Reasoning and planning
o Modelling the external world, given input
▪ Solving new problems, planning and making decisions
▪ Ability to deal with unexpected problems, uncertainties
• Learning and adaptation
o Continuous learning and adapting graph
▪ Our internal models are always being updated
▪ Example: Baby learning to categorize and recognize animals.
How do you make decisions?
The basis of decision making depends upon the availability of information and how we experience and
understand it. ‘information’ includes our past experience, intuition, knowledge, and self-awareness. We
can’t make “good” decisions without information because then we have to deal with unknown factors
and face uncertainty, which leads us to make wild guesses, flipping coins, or rolling a dice. Having
knowledge, experience, or insights given a certain situation, helps us visualize what the outcomes could
be. and how we can achieve/avoid those outcomes.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

When a machine possesses the ability to mimic human traits, i.e., make decisions, predict the future,
learn and improve on its own, it is said to have artificial intelligence. In other words, you can say that a
machine is artificially intelligent when it can accomplish tasks by itself - collect data, understand it,
analyse it, learn from it, and improve it.

How do machines become Artificially Intelligent?

Humans become more and more intelligent with time as they gain experiences during their lives. For
example, in elementary school, we learn about alphabets and eventually we move ahead to making
words with them. As we grow, we become more and more fluent in the language as we keep learning
new words and use them in our conversations. Similarly, machines also become intelligent once they are
trained with some information which helps them achieve their tasks. AI machines also keep updating
their knowledge to optimize their output.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence around us

1. Gaming
2. Voice Assistant
3. E-commerce
4. Social Media
5. Weather Forecasting
6. Media
7. Agriculture
8. Healthcare

What is not AI?

Since we have a lot of different technologies which exist around us in today’s time, it is very common for
us to misunderstand any other technology as AI.

As we discussed earlier, any machine that has been trained with data and can make
decisions/predictions on its own can be termed as AI. Here, the term ‘training’ is important.
A fully automatic washing machine can work on its own, but it requires human intervention to select the
parameters of washing and to do the necessary preparation for it to function correctly before each
wash, which makes it an example of automation, not AI

An air conditioner can be turned on and off remotely with the help of internet but still needs a human
touch. This is an example of Internet of Things (IoT). Also, every now and then we get to know about
robots which might follow a path or maybe can avoid obstacles but need to be primed accordingly each
time.

We also get to see a lot of projects which can automate our surroundings with the help of sensors. Here
too, since the bot or the automation machine is not trained with any data, it does not count as AI.

Robotics and AI can definitely open the doors to humanoids and self-driving cars, AI when merged with
Internet of things can give rise to cloud computing of data and remote access of AI tools, automation
along with AI can help in achieving voice automated homes and so on. Such integrations can help us get
the best of both worlds.
Introduction to AI: Basics of AI
AI can be defined as:

AI is a form of Intelligence; a type of technology and a field of study.

AI theory and development of computer systems (both machines and software) enables machines to
perform tasks that normally require human intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence covers a broad range of domains and applications and is expected to impact every
field in the future. Overall, its core idea is building machines and algorithms which are capable of
performing computational tasks that would otherwise require human like brain functions.

AI, ML & DL

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Refers to any technique that enables computers to mimic human intelligence. It gives the ability to
machines to recognize a human’s face; to move and manipulate objects; to understand the voice
commands by humans, and also do other tasks. The AI-enabled machines think algorithmically and
execute what they have been asked for intelligently.
Machine Learning (ML)

It is a subset of Artificial Intelligence which enables machines to improve at tasks with experience (data).
The intention of Machine Learning is to enable machines to learn by themselves using the provided data
and make accurate Predictions/ Decisions

Deep Learning (DL)

It enables software to train itself to perform tasks with vast amounts of data. In Deep Learning, the
machine is trained with huge amounts of data which helps it in training itself around the data. Such
machines are intelligent enough to develop algorithms for themselves. Deep Learning is the most
advanced form of Artificial Intelligence out of these three. Then comes Machine Learning which is
intermediately intelligent and Artificial Intelligence covers all the concepts and algorithms which, in
some way or the other mimic human intelligence.

Introduction to AI Domains
With respect to the type of data fed in the AI model, AI models can be broadly categorized into three
domains:

Data Sciences
Data sciences is a domain of AI related to data systems and processes, in which the system collects
numerous data, maintains data sets and derives meaning/sense out of them.

Eg: Price Comparison Websites

These websites are being driven by lots and lots of data. If you have ever used these websites, you
would know, the convenience of comparing the price of a product from multiple vendors at one place.
PriceGrabber, PriceRunner, Junglee, Shopzilla, DealTime are some examples of price comparison
websites. Now a days, price comparison website can be found in almost every domain such as
technology, hospitality, automobiles, durables, apparels etc.

Computer Vision
Computer Vision, abbreviated as CV, is a domain of AI that depicts the capability of a machine to get
and analyse visual information and afterwards predict some decisions about it. The entire process
involves image acquiring, screening, analysing, identifying and extracting information. This extensive
processing helps computers to understand any visual content and act on it accordingly. In computer
vision, Input to machines can be photographs, videos and pictures from thermal or infrared sensors,
indicators and different sources.

Example:

Self Driving Cars

Face lock in smart phone

Natural Language Processing

Natural Language Processing, abbreviated as NLP, is a branch of artificial intelligence that deals with the
interaction between computers and humans using the natural language. Natural language refers to
language that is spoken and written by people, and natural language processing (NLP) attempts to
extract information from the spoken and written word using algorithms.

Example:

Email Filters

Smart Assistant

AI Ethics
Data Privacy:

The world of Artificial Intelligence revolves around Data. Every company whether small or big is mining
data from as many sources as possible. More than 70% of the data collected till now has been collected
in the last 3 years which shows how important data has become in recent times. It is not wrongly said
that Data is the new gold.

One of the major sources of data for many major companies is the device which all of us have in our
hands all the time: Smartphones. Smartphones have nowadays become an integral part of our lives.
Most of us use smartphones more than we interact with people around us. Smartphones in today’s era
provide us with a lot of facilities and features which have made our lives easier. Feeling hungry? Order
food online. Want to shop but don’t have time to go out? Go shopping online. From booking tickets to
watching our favourite shows, everything is available in this one small box loaded with technology.

Another feature of smartphones nowadays is that they provide us with customised recommendations
and notifications according to our choices. Let us understand this with the help of some examples:

1. When you are talking to your friend on a mobile network or on an app like WhatsApp. You tell your
friend that you wish to buy new shoes and are looking for suggestions from him/her. You discuss about
shoes and that is it. After some time, the online shopping websites start giving you notifications to buy
shoes! They start recommending some of their products and urge you to you buy some.
2. If you search on Google for a trip to Kerala or any other destination, just after the search, all the apps
on your phone which support advertisements, will start sending messages about packages that you can
buy for the trip.

3. Even when you are not using your phone and talking to a person face-to-face about a book you’ve
read recently while the phone is kept in a locked mode nearby, the phone will end up giving notifications
about similar books or messages about the same book once you operate it.

In all such examples, how does the smartphone get to know about the discussions and thoughts that
you have? Remember whenever you download an app and install it, it asks you for several permissions
to access your phone’s data in different ways. If you do not allow the app these permissions, you
normally cannot access it. And to access the app and make use of it, we sometimes don’t even give it a
thought and allow the app to get all the permissions that it wants. Hence every now and then, the app
has the permission to access various sensors which are there in your smartphone and gather data about
you and your surroundings. We forget that the smartphone which we use is a box full of sensors which
are powered all the time while the phone is switched on.

We need to understand that the data which is collected by various applications is ethical as the
smartphone users agree to it (by clicking on allow when it asks for permission and by agreeing to all the
terms and conditions). But at the same time if one does not want to share his/her data with anyone,
he/she can opt for alternative applications which are of similar usage and keep your data private. For
example, an alternative to WhatsApp is the Telegram app which does not collect any data from us. But
since WhatsApp is more popular and used by the crowd, people go for it without thinking twice.

AI Bias
Another aspect to AI Ethics is bias. Everyone has a bias of their own no matter how much one tries to be
unbiased, we in some way or the other have our own biases even towards smaller things. Biases are not
negative all the time. Sometimes, it is required to have a bias to control a situation and keep things
working.

When we talk about a machine, we know that it is artificial and cannot think on its own. It can have
intelligence, but we cannot expect a machine to have any biases of its own. Any bias can transfer from
the developer to the machine while the algorithm is being developed. Let us look at some of the
examples:

1. Majorly, all the virtual assistants have a female voice. It is only now that some companies have
understood this bias and have started giving options for male voices but since the virtual
assistants came into practice, female voices are always preferred for them over any other voice.
 2. If you search on Google for salons, the first few searches are mostly for female salons. This is
based on the assumption that if a person is searching fora salon, in all probability it would be a
female.

AI Access
Since Artificial Intelligence is still a budding technology, not everyone has the opportunity to access it.
The people who can afford AI enabled devices make the most of it while others who cannot are left
behind. Because of this, a gap has emerged between these two classes of people and it gets widened
with the rapid advancement of technology.

AI creates unemployment

AI is making people’s lives easier. Most of the things nowadays are done in just a few clicks. In no time AI
will manage to be able to do all the laborious tasks which we humans have been doing since long.
Maybe in the coming years, AI enabled machines will replace all the people who work as labourers. This
may start an era of mass unemployment where people having little or no skills may be left without jobs
and others who keep up with their skills according to what is required, will flourish.

AI for kids

As we all can see, kids nowadays are smart enough to understand technology from a very early age. As
their thinking capabilities increase, they start becoming techno-savvy and eventually they learn
everything more easily than an adult. But should technology be given to children so young? Consider
this: A young boy in class 3 has got some Maths homework to finish. He is sitting at a table which has the
Google chat bot - Alexa on it, and he is struggling with his homework. Soon, he starts asking Alexa to
answer all his questions. Alexa replies with answers and the boy simply writes them down in his
notebook.