EMERGING TeCh Chapter 1 Machines That Think W e use the word intelligent in many ways A smart person can be described as intel ligent So can a clever pet that has learned to perform a trick If you are watching a sci-fi movie you might hear the characters talk about searching for intelligent life on a distant planet You know that intelligence has something to do with thinking But Learning how to play a musical instrument requires a great deal of intelligence 44
what exactly does it mean Are all people intelligent Are all animals What about computers Intelligence is more than just being able to think or react to things Experts define it as a blend of several abilities One is perception or the ability to absorb information about your surroundings For a human this means being able to recognize and make sense of the things you see hear feel smell or taste Another part of intelligence is being able to learn new things This could be as simple as remembering facts It could also be as complex as learning to play an instrument or mastering a dance move Intelligence also means being able to reason This means using the information you know to draw conclusions and learn new things Problem solving is another big part of intelligence If you find yourself in an unfamiliar situation you can use your knowledge and skills to find a solution Finally intelligence means being able to understand and use language As you have used computers or played with robots you have probably noticed that they seem to show some signs of intelligence You might talk to your smartphone and ask it to look something up online for 5 ArtificiAl intelligence
EMERGING TeCh Building a Brain Scientists have been studying the human brain for centuries trying to understand how it works While they still have a lot to learn they do know the basic structure that makes the brain function A human brain is made up of billions of special cells called neurons Each neuron is connected to thousands of others These connections form a massive extremely complex web The neurons can send electrical and chemical signals to each other This is what makes the brain work One type of AI involves building computer systems that mimic this brain structure This type of AI is called a neural network A neural network is made up of many connected units Each one functions much like a neuron Neural networks are very good at finding patterns in large amounts of data They have been used for everything from making predictions about the economy to creating weather forecasts you You might also find that it learns how to spell your friends names the more you type them These are examples of something called artificial intelligence or AI What makes your phone’s intelligence artificial After all it seems to meet the definitions of intelli gence It hears your voice it learns new things and it even speaks the same language you do However computers cannot think and process information the same way people do Or at least not yet Instead 6
they follow computer programs that are designed to imitate human intelligence The field of AI technology is based on search ing for new ways to give machines and computers the abilities associated with intelligence AI experts hope that one day they will create a computer that has a mind of its own and is just as intelligent as a human That day could be long off in the future and Studying the human brain and the way people think could provide important clues to developing better AI technology 7 ArtificiAl intelligence
