IS A-I POSSIBLE

Before we embark on a course in Artificial Intelligence, we should consider for a moment whether automating intelligence is really possible!

In 1936, the British mathematician Alan Turing developed the concept of the Turing Machine essentially and “Automatic Machine”, this has been attributed to being the first “artificial Intelligence” in 1950 Alan Turing release a paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, he proceeded to pose the question “Can Machines Think?”. This topic has become a major debate and topic of study amongst many computer scientists. “When talking about the Turing Test today what is generally understood is the following: The interrogator is connected to one person and one machine via a terminal, therefore can't see her counterparts. Her task is to find out which of the two candidates is the machine, and which is the human only by asking them questions. If the machine can "fool" the interrogator, it is intelligent.” [1]In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum, created the first chat bot, essentially a computer program capable of conversation, it was based upon “Rogerian” principles by Sigmund Freud, a renowned doctor, attributed as the founder of modern psychiatry. This chat bot known as ELIZA, Also known as the computer psychiatrist has been created in BASIC / JAVA and other implementations have arisen since its inception. The principles used in these programming languages have become a baseline to anybody creating chat bots or decision based help support systems.

In 1995, Richard Wallace, at Lehigh University created A.L.I.C.E “Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity”. Richard Wallace, also created an assistant language AIML, “Artificial Intelligence Markup Language”, this is used in conjunction with manipulating the conversational elements in the programming of the artificial intelligence. A.L.I.C.E was rewritten in java in 1998 this implementation Program D, has become a model for others who have begun building chat bots using this scripting specification. A.L.I.C.E has also been a winner of the “Loebner Prize”

In 2000, Robert Medeksza, released his creation of Ultra HAL Assistant. This artificial intelligence created with C++, with external VB Scripting offers the user the ability to tailor the personality of the artificial intelligence. The program consists of various algorithms with keywords or triggers to define the user input, also using Word Net as a lexical tool in defining parts of speech. Robert Medeksza, also followed past winners of the “Loebner Prize”

Artificial intelligence research makes the assumption that human intelligence can be reduced to the (complex) manipulation of symbols, and that it does not matter what medium is used to manipulate these symbols - it does not have to be a biological brain! This assumption does not go unchallenged among philosophers etc. Some argue that true intelligence can never be achieved by a computer, but requires some human property which cannot be simulated. There are endless philosophical debates on this issue.