Unit 27: Artificial Intelligence

Unit code L/615/1663

Unit level 5

Credit value 15

Introduction
One of the dreams of the computing sector is to build an intelligent digital assistant
that could serve people according to peoples’ nature. Building this type of intelligent
machine is a big challenge to computer scientists. An intelligent machine must have at
least the following behaviours – vision, speech and voice recognition, smelling sense,
learning from experience to solve new problems and coping with the unknown. The
science of artificial intelligence (AI) is trying to overcome these challenges by
combining the study of nature, understanding from humans' intelligent behaviour and
brain function, other animal’s acute senses, with mathematics, statistics, logic and
traditional computer science. Some of AIs achievements include the NASA's Mars
Rover, Google's Self-Driving Cars, IBM’s Watson, Microsoft's Xbox 360 (the first gaming
device to track human body movement) and much more.
This unit is designed to introduce the philosophy behind artificial intelligence, the
most efficient techniques of AI and various intelligent systems that help us to
overcome various challenges. This unit guides the student to investigate the emerging
AI technologies which could solve various real-world challenges and problems.
Topics included in this unit are the philosophical background to AI, current trends and
the future of AI, ethics and issues in AI ,a range of AI applications (computer vision,
speech processing and so forth), top-down approach of AI techniques, fuzzy logic,
knowledge-based systems, natural language processing), bottom-up approach of AI
techniques (neural networks, evolutionary computing, swarm intelligence), and
emerging AI technologies (Brain Computer Interfacing, Ambient AI, Smart City, GPU AI
etc).
On successful completion of this unit students will be able to understand the
fundamental concepts in artificial intelligence from a theoretical, practical and
cognitive point of view, and also gain innovative thought processes to build intelligent
systems for future needs. Furthermore, the students can gain hands-on experience in
developing intelligent systems using a programming language such as C/C++, C#, Java,
Prolog, Lisp, Python, R, or a tool such as Weka, KNIME, MS AzureML, Accord.NET,
AForge.NET, Neuroph, tools for NLP (NLTK, AIML), tools for swarm robotics (Microsoft
robotics developer studio, Orocos, ‘Player Stage Gazebo’) etc.

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As a result students will develop skills such as communication literacy, critical thinking,
analysis, reasoning and interpretation, which are crucial for gaining employment and
developing academic competence.

Learning Outcomes
By the end of this unit students will be able to:
LO1. Analyse the theoretical foundation of artificial intelligence, current trends and
issues to determine the effectiveness of AI technology.
LO2. Implement an intelligent system using a technique of the top-down approach of
AI.
LO3. Implement an intelligent system using a technique of the bottom-up approach
of AI.
LO4. Investigate and discuss a range of emerging AI technologies to determine
future changes in industry.

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Essential Content

LO1 Analyse the theoretical foundation of artificial intelligence, current trends

and issues to determine the effectiveness of AI technology

Philosophical background of AI:

What is an intelligence? How does the brain work? What is artificial intelligence?
The Turing test, John Searle’s ‘The Chinese Room’ test, Strong AI vs. Weak AI, Top-
down approach of AI vs. bottom up approach of AI.
Top-down approach of AI:
Knowledge-based system, natural language processing, fuzzy logic.

Bottom up approach of AI:

Artificial neural networks, evolutionary computing, swarm intelligence.

Applications of AI:
Intelligent Robot, intelligent agent, artificial life, computer vision, speech
recognition, artificial nose, data mining and other smart technologies.

Issues of AI:
Practical difficulties in building brain like machine, ethics and social issues of AI,
philosophical issues of AI – will computers control the human?

LO2 Implement an intelligent system using a technique of the top-down

approach of AI

Choose and develop skill on a development tool or programming language which

support top-down approach:
Introduction to the language or tool; a quick tour of the language or tool;
investigate and develop skill on functions, classes, libraries and/or packages
which support the top-down approach.

Choose a technique from the list below, then investigate and demonstrate the
technique using the programming language or a tool:
Knowledge based system: data representation, semantic net, rule-based system.

Fuzzy logic: uncertainty, fuzzy sets, fuzzy inferences, fuzzy rules.

Natural language processing: NLP techniques, parsing with generations,
compositional and lexical semantics, dialogues.

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LO3 Implement an intelligent system using a technique of the bottom-up
approach of AI

Choose and develop skill on a development tool or programming language which

support bottom-up approach:
Introduction to the language or tool; a quick tour of the language or tool;
investigate and develop skill on functions, classes, libraries and/or packages
which support the bottom-up approach.

Choose a technique from the list below then investigate and demonstrate the
technique using the programming language or a tool:
Artificial neural network: supervised learning algorithms, single perceptron, MLP
& backpropagation learning algorithms.
Evolutionary computing: problem model, fitness evaluation, selection method,
crossover operator, evolution scheme, observation.
Swarm intelligence: swarm intelligent approaches, swarm robotics, team size and
composition, team configurability, communication pattern and range.

LO4 Investigate and discuss a range of emerging AI technologies to determine

future changes in industry

Distributed AI; GPU AI; Ambient AI; Brain Computer Interfacing; Smart Systems, Smart
Home and Smart Cities.

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Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria

Pass Merit Distinction

LO1 Analyse the theoretical foundation of artificial
intelligence, current trends and issues to determine the
effectiveness of AI technology
P1 Investigate the top-down M1 Discuss how AI has D1 Review the
approach of AI and its changed the world in the contribution that AI has
techniques, and show how last two decades and had on a global basis to
these techniques have been evaluate the ethical, social individuals and society
used to build intelligent and philosophical issues of with the use of examples.
systems. AI.
P2 Investigate the bottom-up
approach of AI and its
techniques, and show how
these techniques have been
used to build intelligent
systems.
LO2 Implement an intelligent system using a technique of
the top-down approach of AI
P3 Develop an intelligent M2 Critically evaluate the D2 Develop an
system using a top-down effectiveness of the outstanding intelligent
approach with a suitable intelligent system and system based on a top-
programming language or suggest methods of down approach to
tool. improvement. overcome a real-world
P4 Test the system and issue.
analyse the results against
expected results to identify
consistencies.

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 Pass Merit Distinction
LO3 Implement an intelligent system using a technique
of the bottom-up approach of AI
P5 Develop an intelligent M3 Critically evaluate the D3 Develop an outstanding,
system using a bottom-up effectiveness of the intelligent system based on a
approach with a suitable intelligent system and bottom-up approach to
programming language or suggest methods of overcome a real-world issue.
tool. improvement.
P6 Test the system and
analyse the test results
against expected results to
identify consistencies.
LO4 Investigate and discuss a range of emerging AI
technologies to determine future changes in industry
P7 Investigate and chose an M4 Critically evaluate the D4 Discuss how emerging AI
emerging AI technology and industrial and social technology might change our
demonstrate how it works. implications of an future.
emerging AI technology.
P8 Illustrate how three
emerging technologies are
expected to determine
future changes in industry.

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Recommended Resources

Textbooks
Engelbrecht, A. (2007) Computational Intelligence: An Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.
Jain, A. (2011) Introduction to Biometrics. Springer.
Fankhauser, W. (2015) Artificial Intelligence Applications: Natural Language Processing.
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Frankish, K. and Ramsey, W. (2014) The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Klette, R. (2014) Concise Computer Vision: An Introduction into Theory and Algorithms.
Springer.
Picon, A. (2015) Smart Cities: A Spatialised Intelligence. AD Primer. John Wiley & Sons.
Vaden, L. (2015) Advanced Topics in Brain-Computer Interfacing. CreateSpace
Independent Publishing Platform.
Warwick, K. (2011) Artificial Intelligence: The Basics. Routledge.

Websites
archive.ics.uci.edu/ml University of California, Irvine
“Machine Learning Repository” (Data sets)
www.codechef.com CodeChef educational initiative
“List of Compilers” (Wiki)
www.lfd.uci.edu University of California, Irvine – Laboratory for Fluorescence
Dynamics
“Binaries for Python Extension Packages” (Development
Tool)
cran.r-project.org The R Project for Statistical Computing
“R Archive Network” (Development Tool)
julialang.org Julia Programming Language (Development Tool)
pkg.julialang.org Julia Programming Language (Development Tool)
www.cs.waikato.ac.nz University of Waikato – Machine Learning Group
“Data Mining Software in Java” (Development Tool)
www.knime.org Konstanz Information Miner
“KNIME” (Development Tool)
azure.microsoft.com Microsoft Azure (Development Tool)
accord-framework.net Accord.NET Framework (Development Tool)

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www.swi-prolog.org SWI-Prolog (Development Tool)
common-lisp.net The Common Lisp Foundation
“Common-Lisp.NET” (Development Tool)
www.aforgenet.com Open source C# framework
“AForge.NET” (Development Tool)
www.nltk.org Natural Language Toolkit
“NLTK” (Development Tool)
www.alicebot.org ALICE A.I. Foundation
“AIML: Artificial Intelligence Markup Language”
(Development Tool)
www.orocos.org The Orocos Project
“Open Robot Control Software” (Development Tool)
www.microsoft.com Microsoft
“Robotics Developer Studio” (Development Tool)

Links
This unit links to the following related units:
Unit 26: Machine Learning

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