Modern Trends in the Workplace
Expert Systems, Robotics, and Virtual
Reality
Artificial Intelligence
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a field of study
that explores how computers can be used for tasks that require
the human characteristics of intelligence, imagination, and intuition.
AI Subsets of Interest
- Problem solving covers a broad spectrum, from
playing games to planning military strategy.
- Natural languages are the study of the person
/ computer interface in unconstrained English language.
- Fuzzy logic is a type of AI that allows machines
to "think" more along the lines of humans, providing
a method of precisely measuring vague concepts.
- Expert systems present the computer as an expert
on some particular topic.
- Robotics is the study of endowing computer-controlled
machines with vision, speech, and touch.
How Computers Learn
- A knowledge base is a set of facts and rules
about those facts.
- An inference engine accesses, selects, and interprets
a set of rules.
- The inference engine applies the rules to the facts to make
up new facts.
Neural Networks
- Neural networks are computers with chips designed
to mimic the human brain.
- Instead of following the usual step-by-step series of instructions,
neural net computers form a grid, much like a nerve cell in the
brain.
- The grid is used to recognize patterns.
Natural Languages
- A natural language is the language people use
on a daily basis to write and speak (e.g. English).
- Understanding natural languages is a skill thought to require
intelligence.
- A key function of the AI study of natural languages is to
develop a computer system that can resolve ambiguities.
Expert Systems
- An expert system is a software package used
with an extensive set of organized data that presents the computer
as an expert on a particular topic.
- The facts and rules used by an expert system originally come
from a human expert.
Robotics
- A robot is a computer-controlled device that
can physically manipulate its surroundings.
- The most common industrial robots today are mechanical devices
with five or six axes of motion.
- Field robots are remotely controlled to handle dangerous tasks.
Virtual Reality
- Virtual reality involves immersing a user in a computer-created
environment so that the user physically interacts with that environment.
- Often involves headsets and gloves to sense the user's movement
and display the virtual world.
- Through the VRML standard, many web sites are providing
VR interfaces.