Applications of AI

AI has been dominant in various fields such as −

 Gaming − AI plays crucial role in strategic games such as chess, poker, tic-
tac-toe, etc., where machine can think of large number of possible positions
based on heuristic knowledge.

 Natural Language Processing − It is possible to interact with the

computer that understands natural language spoken by humans.

 Expert Systems − There are some applications which integrate machine,

software, and special information to impart reasoning and advising. They
provide explanation and advice to the users.

 Vision Systems − These systems understand, interpret, and comprehend

visual input on the computer. For example,

o A spying aeroplane takes photographs, which are used to figure out

spatial information or map of the areas.

o Doctors use clinical expert system to diagnose the patient.

o Police use computer software that can recognize the face of criminal
with the stored portrait made by forensic artist.

 Speech Recognition − Some intelligent systems are capable of hearing and

comprehending the language in terms of sentences and their meanings while
a human talks to it. It can handle different accents, slang words, noise in the
background, change in human’s noise due to cold, etc.

 Handwriting Recognition − The handwriting recognition software reads the

text written on paper by a pen or on screen by a stylus. It can recognize the
shapes of the letters and convert it into editable text.

 Intelligent Robots − Robots are able to perform the tasks given by a

human. They have sensors to detect physical data from the real world such
as light, heat, temperature, movement, sound, bump, and pressure. They
have efficient processors, multiple sensors and huge memory, to exhibit
intelligence. In addition, they are capable of learning from their mistakes and
they can adapt to the new environment.
Advantages of AI

 more powerful and more useful computers

 new and improved interfaces

 solving new problems

 better handling of information

 relieves information overload

 conversion of information into knowledge

Disadvantages of AI

 increased costs

 difficulty with software development - slow and expensive

 few experienced programmers

 few practical products have reached the market as yet.

1. Heuristics
Suppose we have coins with the following denominations: 5 cents, 4 cents, 3 cents,
and 1 cent, and that we need to determine the minimum number of coins to create
the amount of 7 cents. In order to solve this problem we can use a technique called
“Heuristics”.

Webster1 defines the term Heuristic as “involving or serving as an aid to learning,

discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial and error
methods”. In practice, this means that whenever problems get too complex to find
the guaranteed best possible solution using exact methods, Heuristics serves to
employ a practical method for finding a solution that is not guaranteed to be
optimal, but one that is sufficient for the immediate goals.

For some problems, tailored heuristics can be designed that exploits the structure
within the problem. An example of such a tailored heuristic would be a greedy
heuristic for the above mentioned coin-changing problem. We speak of a greedy
heuristic when we always choose the largest denomination possible and repeat this
until we get to the desired value of 7. In our example, that means that we would
start with selecting a 5 cent coin. For the remaining 2 cents, the largest
denomination we can choose is 1 cent, leaving us with the situation where we still
have to cover 1 cent for which we again use 1 cent.

So our greedy heuristic gives us a solution of 3 coins (5, 1, 1) to get to the value of
7 cents. Of course another, better, solution of only 2 coins exists, using the 3 and 4
cent coins. While the greedy heuristic for the coin changing problem does not
provide the best solution for this particular case, in most cases it will result in a
solution that is acceptable.

Besides such tailored Heuristics for specific problems, certain generic heuristics exist
as well. Just like neural networks, some of these generic heuristics are based on
processes in nature. Two examples of such generic heuristics are Ant Colony
Optimization2 and genetic algorithms3. The first is based on how simple ants are able
to work together to solve complex problems; the latter is based on the principle of
survival of the fittest.

A typical problem where heuristics are applied to find acceptable solutions quickly is
vehicle routing, where the objective is to find routes for one or more vehicles visiting
a number of locations.

2. Support Vector Machines

The question whether an email is spam or not is an example of a classification
problem. In these types of problems, the objective is to determine whether a given
data point belongs to a certain class or not. After first training a classifier model on
data points for which the class is known (e.g. a set of emails that are labeled as
spam or not spam), you can then use the model to determine the class of new,
unseen data-points. A powerful technique for these types of problems is Support
Vector Machines4 (SVM).

The main idea behind SVM is that you try to find the boundary line that separates
the two classes, but in such a way that the boundary line creates a maximum
separation between the classes. To demonstrate this, we will use the following
simple data for our classification problem:

In this example, the green circles and the red squares could represent two different
segments in a total set of customers (e.g. high potentials and low potentials), based
on all kinds of properties for each of the customers. Any line that keeps the green
circles on the left and the red squares on the right is considered a valid boundary
line for the classification problem. There is an infinite number of such lines that can
be drawn. Four different examples are presented below:
As stated before, SVM helps you to find the boundary line that maximizes the
separation between the two classes. In the provided example, this can be drawn as
follows:

The two dotted lines are the two parallel separation lines with the largest space
between them. The actual classification boundary that is used will be the solid line
exactly in the middle of the two dotted lines.

The name Support Vector Machine comes from the data points that are directly on
either of these lines. These are the supporting vectors. In our example, there were
three supporting vectors.
If any of the other data points (i.e. not a supporting vector) is moved a bit, the
dotted boundary lines are not affected. However, if the position of any of the
supporting vectors is slightly changed (e.g. data point 1 is moved slightly to the
left), the position of the dotted boundary lines will change and therefore the position
of the solid classification line also changes.

In real life, data is not as straightforward as in this simplified example. We usually

work with more than two dimensions. Besides having straight separation lines, the
underlying mathematics for an SVM also allows for certain types of calculations
or kernels that result in boundary lines that are non-linear.

SVM classification models can also be found in image recognition, e.g. face
recognition, or when handwriting is converted to text.

3. Artificial Neural Networks

Animals are able to process (visual or other) information from their environment and
adapt to change. They use their nervous system to perform such behavior. Their
nervous system can be modeled and simulated and it should be possible to
(re)produce similar behavior in artificial systems. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN)
can be described as processing devices that are loosely modeled after the neural
structure of a brain. The biggest difference between the two is that the ANN might
have hundreds or thousands of neurons, whereas the neural structure of an animal
or human brain has billions.

Figure 1: Graphical representation of a biological neuron (left) and an artificial neuron (right)

The basic principle of a neural structure is that each neuron is connected with a
certain strength to other neurons. Based on the inputs taken from the output of
other neurons (also considering the connection strength) an output is generated that
can be used again as input by other neurons, see Figure 1 (left). This basic idea has
been translated into an artificial neural network by using weights to indicate the
strength of the connection between neurons. Furthermore, each neuron will take the
output from the connected neurons as input and use a mathematical function to
determine its output. This output is then used by other neurons again.

While learning consists of strengthening or weakening the bonds between different

neurons in the biological brain, in the ANN learning consists of changing the weights
between the neurons. By providing the neural network with a large set of training
data with known features, the best weights between the artificial neurons (i.e.
strength of the bond) can be calculated in order to make sure that the neural
network best recognizes the features.

The neurons of the ANN can be structured into several layers 5. Figure 2 shows an
illustrative scheme of such layering. This network consists of an input layer, where
all the inputs are received, processed and converted to outputs into the next layers.
The hidden layers consist of one or more layers of neurons each passing through
inputs and outputs. Finally, the output layer receives inputs of the last hidden layer
and converts this into the output for the user.

Figure 2: Schematic of a connected ANN

Figure 2 shows an example of a network in which all neurons in one layer are
connected to all neurons in the next layer. Such a network is called fullyconnected.
Depending on the kind of problem you want to solve, different connection patterns
are available. For image recognition purposes, typically Convolutional networks are
used, in which only groups of neurons from one layer are connected to groups of
neurons in the next layer. For speech recognition purposes, typically Recurrent
networks are used, that allow for loops from neurons in a later layer back to an
earlier layer.

4. Markov Decision Process

A Markov Decision Process (MDP) is a framework for decision-making modeling
where in some situations the outcome is partly random and partly based on the
input of the decision maker. Another application where MDP is used is optimized
planning. The basic goal of MDP is to find a policy for the decision maker, indicating
what particular action should be taken at what state.
An MDP model consists of the following parts6:

 A set of possible states: for example, this can refer to a grid world of a robot or
the states of a door (open or closed).

 A set of possible actions: a fixed set of actions that e.g. a robot can take, such
as going north, left, south or west. Or with respect to a door, closing or opening
it.

 Transition probabilities: this is the probability of going from one state to

another. For example, what is the probability that the door is closed, after the
action of closing the door has been performed?

 Rewards: these are used to direct the planning. For instance, a robot may want
to move north to reach its destination. Actually going north will result in a
higher reward.

Once the MDP has been defined, a policy can be trained using “Value Iteration” or
“Policy Iteration”. These methods are used to calculate the expected rewards for
each of the states. The policy then renders the best action that can be taken from
each state.

As an example, we will define a grid that can be considered as an ideal, finite world
for a robot7. This example grid is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Example - grid world of a robot

The robot can move (action) from each position in the grid (state) in four directions,
i.e. north, left, right and south. The probability that the robot goes into the desired
direction is 0.7 and 0.1 if it moves towards any of the other 3 directions. A reward of
-1 (i.e. a penalty) is given if the robot bumps into a wall and doesn’t move. Also,
there are additional rewards and penalties if the robot reaches the cells that are
colored green and red, respectively. Based on the probabilities and rewards a policy
(function) can be made using the initial and final state.

Another example of MDP usage is the inventory planning problem - a stock keeper
or manager has to decide how many units have to be ordered each week. The
inventory planning can be modeled as an MDP, where the states can be considered
as positive inventory and shortages. Possible actions are for instance ordering new
units or backlogging to the next week. Transition probabilities can be considered as
the action that will be taken based on the demand and inventory for the current
week. Rewards - or in this case, costs - are typically unit order costs and inventory
costs.

5. Natural Language Processing

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is used to refer to everything from speech
recognition to language generation, each requiring different techniques. A few of the
important techniques will be explained below, i.e. Part-of-Speech tagging, Named
Entity Recognition, and Parsing.

Let us examine the sentence “John hit the can.” One of the first steps of NLP is
lexical analysis, using a technique called Part-of-Speech (POS) tagging. With this
technique every word is tagged to correspond to a category of words with similar
grammatical properties, based on its relationship with adjacent and related words.
Not only words are tagged, but also paragraphs and sentences. Part-of-speech
tagging is mainly performed with statistical models, that lead to probabilistic results
instead of hard if-then rules, and is therefore used for processing unknown text.
Also, they can cope with the possibility of multiple possible answers, instead of only
one. A technique that is often used for tagging is a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). An
HMM is similar to the Markov Decision Process, where each state is a part of speech
and the outcome of the process is the words of the sentence. HMMs ‘remember’
sequences of words that came before. Based on this, they can make better
estimates of what Part-Of-Speech a word is. For example: ‘can’ in ‘the can’ is more
likely to be a noun than a verb. The end result is that the words are tagged as
followed: ‘John’ as a noun (N), ‘hit’ as a verb (V), ‘the’ as a determiner (D) and ‘can’
as a noun (N) as well.

Named Entity Recognition or NER, is similar to POS tagging. Instead of tagging

words with the function of the word in the sentence (POS), words are tagged with
the type of entity the word represents. These entities can be e.g. persons,
companies, time, or location. But also more specialized entities such as gene, or
protein. Although an HMM can also be used for NER, the technique of choice is a
Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). An RNN is a different type of neural network as
discussed earlier, but it takes sequences as input (a number of words in a sentence,
or complete sentences), and remembers the output from the previous sentence 8. In
the sentence we are looking at, it will recognize John as the entity ‘person’.

A final technique to be discussed is called Parsing (Syntactic Analysis) - analyzing

the grammar of the text and the way the words are arranged, so that the
relationship between the words is clear. The Part-of-Speech tag from the lexical
analysis is used and then grouped into small phrases, which in turn can also be
combined with other phrases or words to make a slightly longer phrase. This is
repeated until the goal is reached: every word in the sentence has been used. The
rules of how the words can be grouped are called the grammar and can take a form
like this: D+N = NP, which reads: a Determiner + Noun = Noun Phrase. The final
result is depicted in the figure.

Conclusion
The techniques used within the domain of Artificial Intelligence are actually just
advanced forms of statistical and mathematical models. All these models cleverly
put together provide us with tools to compute tasks that were previously thought to
be reserved for humans. In subsequent blogs we will dive deeper into business
applications, some associated technology trends, and the top 5 risks and concerns.

The Main TOPICS in AI

Artificial intelligence can be considered under a number of headings:

 Search (includes Game Playing).

 Representing Knowledge and Reasoning with it.

 Planning.

 Learning.

 Natural language processing.

 Expert Systems.

 Interacting with the Environment

(e.g. Vision, Speech recognition, Robotics)