AI Practical homework 1

Artificial Intelligence Principles Practical 1

Historical and Darwinian Evolution of

AI

Aim The aim of this practical is to write an essay on the evolution of

AI. This practical counts for 18% of the Module marks.

Objectives After doing the practical you should be able to:

• Find relevant AI and other material from a variety of sources, filter the information for

usefulness, and summarise the most important aspects in a well-structured and well-referenced

document.

Specification AI has evolved since Turing presented the Turing Test. Your task is to describe this evolution through identifying examples of important advances or controversies, describing them briefly, and placing them in

context. The evolution should be described as a comparison between Historical and Darwinian acounts. A

Historical account may be taken to be simply a factual account of the above examples starting with the Turing

Test. A Darwinian account may be said to be the ways in which AI has evolved as a survival of the fittest

methodology. This survival is with respect to both rival methods within AI and also AI itself as a rival to non -

AI methods in academia, industry, and society. The key question to address is the extent to which the Darwinian account matches the Historical account, i.e. has the evolution of AI been solely or largely

Darwinian?

Deliverables The deliverable for this project comprises an essay written in the typesetting style of your choice. The advisory

word limit for the main text (including the Abstract) is 3,600 not including references. Your essay should have the following structure:

1. Title.

2. Abstract (maximum 200 words).

3. Introduction.

4. Content sections (and possibly subsections).

5. Conclusion/Summary

6. References/Bibliography

All figures and tables should have legends/captions. Any quotes from sources should be clearly formatted as

quotes and fully referenced (using APA referencing style). While books and research papers are

preferable, authoritative websites are also allowed in this case. Valid URLs for these sites should be included.

Your examples should include Searle's Chinese Room. They should also show how AI had a relatively slow

impact on academia, industry, and society initially but more recently has had a rapidly expanding impact. Describe with reasons where the current state of AI lies along the spectrum of Weak to Strong AI and what

may be expected in terms of any shift along the spectrum in Darwinian terms and why. The more insight you

can give into accompanying underlying mechanisms the better.

Some Hints 1. Avoid long quotes or paraphrasing without thought!

2. Try to view the essay as a logical argument building up to a conclusion which is insightful and convincing.

3. Ask yourself after each paragraph what part of the specification is being addressed as directly as possible.

4. Back up claims with either logical argument or references to published work that backs up the claim.