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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 1985)
dJdijMauiog ■i. '5tv*o : 'tKfcf -SM^O 'i^O* 'sm '«C*3 m m • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • a, • • >••••• • « • • ’TB'Taraca? • ••••••« * 4 k * * • • • * » *. /.A • *. ***■*>- P SP-S^ \\«iX—-S>- Ns* Wni JK —%& a $ * * 4 9 # .# • •' * *»•!» * * • * /} • •> •;•*•** • • • * ^ti .y ^ t ,«•••• ^ -i_a=^; 1 » t* « t »;9 9 *4 » 9 • * /. 4 _ . „ 33—r-’sJj !♦.... \ IVA: ^ f w oj^sja , i 3<c—{—»£ t*sr 8lf a: ^jL— !f i' P\^ ir W: mJF V l» S ':. : i ■A of | \ar*ti*fi*cial (ar'ts fish'5lK33^rt^^E. < ■ n /cjflfw < artificium^&tfftFiQE] l. made K \ or art, not bv^Srttfr^; not natural 2. made in iirnl-— V . W as a substitute for something natural; simulated not native, ab a-garucu jjiam. —<« wu vi Qdiu^ .• M§ •yfe ■ te •'* r-' 1 " t { m in*teMi*gence (in tel'a jdi^f n. [ME. < OFr. < L. inlelli- geniia, perception, ^ discernment < inieiligens, prp. of inleiligere: see intellect] 1. a) the ability to learn or understand from experience; ability to acquire and retain knowledge; mental ability b) the ability to respond quickly and successfully to a new situation*, use of the faculty of reason in solving problems/ directing conduct, etc. effec tively c) Fsyc/iof. measuied success musing these abilities Computers are' . so adept at thinking like humans, they are takieg over tasks from piloting to diagnosing illness. The really smart technicians will he those who figure out a way to get into this promising field. <c .7\y/ m m By Diana ben Aaron P eople used to think computers were just big calculators, but no longer. Today's computers can identify chemicals, understand sim ple sentences, interpret visual images and diagnose illnesses in people or machines. Tomorrow's computers may even be able to use abstract concepts just as humans do. The science of making computers perform at this level is called artificial intelligence (or Al for short). Al is already creating a mini-revolution in streamlining microcircuit design and promises to dramatically transform how work Is done in fields from magazine layout to factory automation. Furthermore, it is one of the fastest growing career opportunities in the technical professions. The major challenge facing those in the field of Al is creating programs and hardware which allow computers to take over tasks (usually repeti tive or tedious ones) now done by humans. To adapt computers to perform at this level, Al designers and program mers must overcome the limitations of their essentially 'dumb' machines. For instance, recognizing a voice or picking up a baseball bat may be child's play for a five-year-old, but getting a machine to do it requires SYN.—artificial is applied to anything made by human work, if in imitation of something natural [artificial hairi; synthet applied to a substance that is produced by chemical synthesi^jaai^ N „ is used as a substitute for a natural substance which it reseiri x more than wave analyzers and robot arms. "What's missing is the brain," says writer and computing aficionado Jerry Pournelle. One primary task has been to get computers to think in terms of sym bols rather than numbers. Human brains use symbols and relationships rather than numbers, and now, so do computers (except at the lowest levels). The gibberish of early computer languages ("3050: IF X = l,GOTO 3051") is being replaced by languages made up of symbolic expressions ("ifx [is true], [then do] y"). Al researchers are using these expressions, which are becoming in creasingly like English, to encode problem-solving heuristics (common rules of thumb for thinking), which approximate more and more closely the processes of human thought. •\Currently, the most common form of Al is what is called an 'expert system' (although many prefer the terms 'knowledge-based' or 'consul tation' system). These are simply large collections of the rules human experts in a field refer to in the course of their work, consciously and unconsciously, defined for the computer. You might trust a computer program to help (Continued qn pageb) ► of mind, cleverness, shrewdness, etci 2. news'or ilfotanation 3. a) the gathering of secret information, as or police purposes' b) the persons or agency