1

Section II

Artificial Intelligence Technologies in Business

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Business and AI
Designed

to leverage the capabilities of

humans rather than replace them,AI
technology enables an extraordinary array of
applications that forge new connections among
people, computers, knowledge, and the
physical world.

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Artificial Intelligence
A field

of science and technology based on

disciplines such as computer science, biology,
psychology, linguistics, mathematics, &
engineering
Goal is to develop computers that can think,
see, hear, walk, talk, and feel
Major thrust development of computer
functions normally associated with human
intelligence reasoning, learning, problem
solving
McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Artificial Intelligence (continued)

Domains

of AI
Three major areas
Cognitive science
Robotics
Natural interfaces

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Artificial Intelligence (continued)

Cognitive

science
Focuses on researching how the human
brain works & how humans think and learn
Applications
Expert systems
Adaptive learning systems
Fuzzy logic systems
Neural networks
Intelligent agents

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Artificial Intelligence (continued)

Robotics
Produces

robot machines with computer

intelligence and computer controlled,
humanlike physical capabilities
Natural interfaces
Natural language and speech recognition
Talking to a computer and having it
understand
Virtual reality
McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Neural Networks
Computing

systems modeled after the brains

meshlike network of interconnected processing
elements, called neurons
Goal the neural network learns from data it
processes

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Fuzzy Logic Systems

A method

of reasoning that resembles human

reasoning
Allows for approximate values and inferences
Allows for incomplete or ambiguous data
Allows fuzzy systems to process incomplete
data and provide approximate, but acceptable,
solutions to problems

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Genetic Algorithms
Uses

Darwinian, randomizing, & other

mathematical functions to simulate an
evolutionary process that can yield
increasingly better solutions
Especially useful for situations in which
thousands of solutions are possible & must be
evaluated

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

10

Virtual Reality
Computer-simulated

reality
Relies on multisensory input/output devices
Allows interaction with computer-simulated
objects, entities, and environments in three
dimensions

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

11

Intelligent Agents
A software

surrogate for an end user or a

process that fulfills a stated need or activity
Uses built-in and learned knowledge base
about a person or process to make decisions
and accomplish tasks

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

12

Expert Systems
A knowledge-based

information system that

uses its knowledge about a specific, complex
application area to act as an expert consultant

Provides

answers to questions in a very

specific problem area

Must

be able to explain reasoning process and

conclusions to the user

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

13

Expert Systems (continued)

Components
Knowledge

base
Software resources

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

14

Expert Systems (continued)

Knowledge

base

Contains
Facts

about a specific subject area

Heuristics that express the reasoning
procedures of an expert on the subject

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

15

Expert Systems (continued)

Software

Resources
Contains an inference engine and other
programs for refining knowledge and
communicating
Inference engine processes the
knowledge, and makes associations
and inferences
User interface programs, including an
explanation program, allows
communication with user

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

16

Developing Expert Systems

Begin

with an expert system shell

Add the knowledge base
Built

by a knowledge engineer
Works with experts to capture their
knowledge
Works with domain experts to build the
expert system

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

17

The Value of Expert Systems

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

18

The Value of Expert Systems (continued)

Benefits
Can

outperform a single human expert in

many problem situations
Helps preserve and reproduce knowledge of
experts
Limitations
Limited

focus, inability to learn,

maintenance problems, developmental costs

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights