1 – What is AI?

🎯 Learning Objectives

Develop the Information Technology Learning Strands:

  • develop an understanding of what intelligence is
  • develop an understanding of what artificial intelligence is
  • develop some understanding the current development in AI technologies
💬 Key Vocabulary
  • artificial intelligence (AI)
  • intelligence
  • technology
  • knowledge
  • artificial
  • machine
📖 Starter Activity – What is Intelligence?
  • How can we tell if someone is intelligent or not?
    • Do you need to get good grades to be intelligent?
    • Do you need to be good at sport?
    • Do you need to be artistic?
    • Do you need to be popular?
  • Discuss in pairs and be ready to share three ideas with the class.

📖 200 years from a hoax to an intelligent machine

  • In 1770, at Schönbrunn Palace, the world was introduced to the first Artificially Intelligent machine.
  • Called The Mechanical Turk the clockwork machine was able to play chess, and was able to beat all the human opponents pitted against it that day, typically in under half and hour.
  • There was one problem with the The Mechanical Turk, it was a hoax.
  • Inside the mechanism was space for a human to sit, and from where he could operate the machinery.
  • It would be over 200 years before a computer was able to convincingly beat a human at chess, when in 1997, Deep Blue beat the World Champion -Gary Kasparov in a 6 game match.

📖 Learn It

  • Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence exhibited by machines or software. What is exactly is intelligence?
  • As you will learn, we are already surrounded by AI, whether that be the route finding software in the maps app on your mobile phone, that enemy combatant in your FPS console game or the recommendation software used to suggest products to you based on your previous purchases.
  • An explanation on what AI is:

🏅 Badge it

🥈 Silver Badge
  • There are a few basic goals of AI research. These are to produce machines or software that are capable of:

  1. reasoning (making decisions)
  2. representing knowledge
  3. forward planning
  4. learning
  5. natural language processing (communication)
  6. perception (sensing an environment)
  7. move and manipulate objects

  • Make sure you understand each of the above bulletin points. If not, conduct some research online
  • Open this worksheet and then watch the following three videos and decide which (if any) of the goals listed above have been achieved by the AIs in the videos by putting a X in the table. For example, put X in the reasoning column if the AI can perform reasoning in the table of your opened document.
  • Answer the other two questions in your opened document and save to your homedrive and upload to Bourne to Learn.

Parkour Atlas

Chat GPT

Alpha GO

🥇 Gold Badge – Can Computers Be Creative?
  • Open a blank Word document
  • Answer the following questions after or while watching the video below:
    • Who was Lady Lovelace?
    • What was her test?
    • What examples of being creative are given?
    • Explain how evolution can be used to make music
🥉 Platinum Badge
  • Deciding what qualifies as AI and what doesn’t is not easy.
  • Something is Artificial if it is not naturally occurring – i.e. man-made.
  • What do we mean by Intelligence though?
  • Do animals display intelligence? How about fish? Insects? Worms?
  • The 17th century philosopher and mathematician, Rene Descartes, went as far as to suggest that all animals were nothing more than automata (machines made of muscle and bone) and incapable of true thought.
  • Others have suggested that we can see evidence of Intelligence in organisms as simple as protozoa or algae.
  • In your own words, try to define what you think it means to be intelligent.
  • If you were going to devise a test, that could classify a machine as intelligent or not, what type of test would it be?

In this lesson, you…

  • Looked at different types of AI and decided what kind of intelligence they had.
  • Considered whether computers can be creative or not and how you can test for this.
  • Devised a test to see if a machine is intelligent or not.

Next lesson, you will…

  • Compare chat-bots and decide whether they pass the “Turing Test“.
  • Find out what machine learning is and how it is transforming our lives.
  • Write about the consequences of AI being able to imitate humans.