From IAE-Pedia

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Free Book on AI in Education 3 The (Possibly) Coming Singularity 4 Robots 5 References 6 Author or Authors

[edit] Introduction

The real problem is not whether machines think

but whether men do. (B. F. Skinner)

Artificial Intelligence is slowly but surely growing in its importance in education. As machines grow "smarter," our educational system needs to be in a process of continually rethinking what students should be learning.

One way to think about AI is by comparing and contrasting the capabilities and limitations of a human brain with that of an artificially intelligent computer. Both a human brain and a computer "brain" can input, store, process, and output information. Both can contain declarative and procedural knowledge.

Right now, a human brain is far far better at thinking, understanding, and knowing what it is like to be human than is a computer brain. However, a computre brain can carry out a variety of procedures (that humans consider important) far fastre and more accurately than a human brain.

Thus, we need an educational system that prepares humans to work in an environment in which both human brains and computer brains are valued and useful. This general idea underlies the field of Computational Thinking.

[edit] Free Book on AI in Education

The following bok is available free in PDF and Microsoft Word formats:

Moursund, David (2006). Introduction to Artificial Intelligence in Education. Retrieved 4/14/08: http://i-a-e.org/ebooks/cat_view/37-free-ebooks-by-dave-moursund.html. Quoting from the book:

Abstract

This book is designed to help preservice and inservice teachers learn about some of the educational implications of current uses of Artificial Intelligence as an aid to solving problems and accomplishing tasks. Humans and their predecessors have developed a wide range of tools to help solve the types of problems that they face. Such tools embody some of the knowledge and skills of those who discover, invent, design, and build the tools. Because of this, in some sense a tool user gains in knowledge and skill by learning to make use of tools.

This document uses the term “tool” in a very broad sense. It includes the stone ax, the flint knife, reading and writing, arithmetic and other math, the hoe and plow, the telescope, microscope, and other scientific instruments, the steam engine and steam locomotive, the bicycle, the internal combustion engine and automobile, and so on. It also includes the computer hardware, software, and connectivity that we lump together under the title Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of the field of computer and information science. It focuses on developing hardware and software systems that solve problems and accomplish tasks that—if accomplished by humans—would be considered a display of intelligence. The field of AI includes studying and developing machines such as robots, automatic pilots for airplanes and space ships, and “smart” military weapons. Europeans tend to use the term machine intelligence (MI) instead of the term AI.

The theory and practice of AI is leading to the development of a wide range of artificially intelligent tools. These tools, sometimes working under the guidance of a human and sometimes without external guidance, are able to solve or help solve a steadily increasing range of problems. Over the past 50 years, AI has produced a number of results that are important to students, teachers, our overall educational system, and to our society.

This short book provides an overview of AI from K-12 education and teacher education points of view. It is designed specifically for preservice and inservice teachers and school administrators. However, educational aides, parents, school site council members, school board members, and others who are interested in education will find this booklet to be useful.

This book is designed for self-study, for use in workshops, for use in a short course, and for use as a unit of study in a longer course on ICT in education. It contains a number of ideas for immediate application of the content, and it contains a number of activities for use in workshops and courses. An appendix contains suggestions for Project-Based Learning activities suitable for educators and students.

[edit] The (Possibly) Coming Singularity

What will happen if/when AI systems get "smarter" than people? People who think about this possibility use the word singularity to describe this (possible) event. Ray Kurzweil is a leader in this field, and his 2005 book, The Singularity is Near, has received wide attention. There is now an annual conference (Olsen, 9/7/07) as well as a Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Quoting from the Singularity Institute Website:

The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. There are several technologies that are often mentioned as heading in this direction. The most commonly mentioned is probably Artificial Intelligence, but there are others: direct brain-computer interfaces, biological augmentation of the brain, genetic engineering, ultra-high-resolution scans of the brain followed by computer emulation. Some of these technologies seem likely to arrive much earlier than the others, but there are nonetheless several independent technologies all heading in the direction of the Singularity – several different technologies which, if they reached a threshold level of sophistication, would enable the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence.

A future that contains smarter-than-human minds is genuinely different in a way that goes beyond the usual visions of a future filled with bigger and better gadgets. Vernor Vinge originally coined the term "Singularity" in observing that, just as our model of physics breaks down when it tries to model the singularity at the center of a black hole, our model of the world breaks down when it tries to model a future that contains entities smarter than human.

Human intelligence is the foundation of human technology; all technology is ultimately the product of intelligence. If technology can turn around and enhance intelligence, this closes the loop, creating a positive feedback effect. Smarter minds will be more effective at building still smarter minds. This loop appears most clearly in the example of an Artificial Intelligence improving its own source code, but it would also arise, albeit initially on a slower timescale, from humans with direct brain-computer interfaces creating the next generation of brain-computer interfaces, or biologically augmented humans working on an Artificial Intelligence project.

[edit] Robots

Robotics is a large and growing component of the field of computer science and computer engineering. Progress in artificial intelligence is leading to "smarter", more capable robots.

There are a large number of robots working in manufacturing facilities. Typically they are bolted down (they don't walk around), and each carries out relatively specific tasks in a manufacturing process.

However, we are probably familiar with the type of robots being use in the exploration of Mars and the idea that a robot may have leg]s or some other means of locomotion. Click here for a short video on a four-legged robot designed to be a pack animal.

The picture to the right shows a robot that is about as tall as a 2 1/2 year old child. It is a center piece in a new, open source European robotics project. The idea is for many researchers and developers to share ideas as they work to improve the capabilities of this robot. Quoting from the document:

Researchers from across Europe are being trained in Genoa, Italy, this month in advance of taking possession of their very own iCub: a robot designed to have the physical and sensory capabilities of a two-and-a-half year old child.

For the researchers involved, one crucial characteristic of the new robot is that both the hardware and software are open-source and designed for easy collaboration. Whether the researchers build better cognitive architectures, learning algorithms, sensors or limbs, once their work has been proved on the European Commission-funded iCub, it can be shared and used to improve the next generation of machines.

Is this an Age of Robotics?

Here is an excellent article: Mason, Matthew (1/10/08). 9 Questions for Carnegie Mellon Robot Chief Matthew Mason. Retrieved 1/16/07: http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4244208.html. Quoting from the article, here is the first of the questions:

Interesting fundamental ideas involving robotics go way back. The real question is how do we produce the kind of behaviors that we associate with animals and humans—an awareness of the physical world and the ability to take effective action. Can that kind of lifelike behavior be produced by ordinary stuff cleverly assembled: silicon and aluminum, steel, plastic, and bits and bytes. People have being working on that question for centuries, sometimes with very simple machines but also in literature and science fiction. Now we actually do have the technology base to settle that question. In fact, I would say it has been settled. You look at today’s more interesting machines—the soccer-playing robots for example—and it’s obvious that they’re able to take effective action.

So is this an Age of Robotics? It’s not so easy to see that smudge in ground and decide we’ve crossed the line, but I think with some additional years of perspective we’ll say, yeah, we crossed that line somewhere around the mid 1990s.

[edit] References

Damarin, Suzanne (4/16/08). Review of Andrew Zucker's 2008 book: Transforming Schools with Technology: How Smart Use of Digital Tools Helps Achieve Six Key Educational Goals.

Retrieved 4/25/08: http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=15212. Quoting from the review:

As the title suggests, the book takes a very positive outlook on the promises of technology for education. Framing his stance in the first chapter, Zucker considers seriously the positions of well-known technology skeptics such as Larry Cuban while dismissing both the ungrounded critiques and the utopian claims that proliferate in relation to educational computing. He offers fifteen characteristics of digital technology that afford it the potential to help transform schools depending on whether and how it is used. For Zucker, the important features of digital technology that make it promising for education are that it is inexpensive and pervasive, scalable, flexible and all-purpose, interactive, customizable and able to keep records, democratizing, immediate, dynamic, insensitive to distance, community-friendly, less sensitive to time than other communications technologies, service-oriented, evolving, complementary, and extensible. It is these features that he sees as transforming when, where, how, with whom, and what students learn.

Gaskin, James E. (6/23/08). Whatever happened to artificial intelligence? The grand promise of intelligent machines underestimated the complexity of reproducing human cognition. Network World. Retrieved 6/24/08: http://www.networkworld.com/research/2008/062308-artificial-intelligence.html. Quoting from the article:

Stanford University computer science professor John McCarthy coined the phrase in 1956 to mean "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines," In the early years of the artificial intelligence movement, enthusiasm ran high and artificial intelligence pioneers made some bold predictions.

In 1965, artificial intelligence innovator Herbert Simon said that "machines will be capable, within 20 years, of doing any work a man can do."

Two years later, MIT researcher Marvin Minsky predicted, "Within a generation ... the problem of creating 'artificial intelligence' will substantially be solved."

AI has made a lot of progress, but these tend to be in much smaller areas than the forecasts listed above. The article contains a number of examples of such success.

Hauser, Mark (4/4/08). CMU at forefront in building thinking machines. Pittsburg Tribune-Review. Retrieved 4/14/08: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_560910.html.

Quoting from the article:

In the scientific campaign to build intelligent machines, soccer is the new chess.

Just as Carnegie Mellon University produced the prototype computer that eventually checkmated World Champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, it now leads efforts to create robots that will defeat the world's best 11-man squad on grass by 2050.

There's serious science behind this. If robots are going to fight forest fires or build skyscrapers, they first have to learn how to work as a team -- on their own, under pressure, when every second counts.

Koch, Christof and Tononi, Giulio(June 2008). Can Machines Be Conscious? IEEE Spectrum Online. Retrieved 6/18/08: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6278. Quoting from the article:

Would you sell your soul on eBay? Right now, of course, you can't. But in some quarters it is taken for granted that within a generation, human beings—including you, if you can hang on for another 30 years or so—will have an alternative to death: being a ghost in a machine. You'll be able to upload your mind—your thoughts, memories, and personality—to a computer. And once you've reduced your consciousness to patterns of electrons, others will be able to copy it, edit it, sell it, or pirate it. It might be bundled with other electronic minds. And, of course, it could be deleted.

That's quite a scenario, considering that at the moment, nobody really knows exactly what consciousness is. Pressed for a pithy definition, we might call it the ineffable and enigmatic inner life of the mind. But that hardly captures the whirl of thought and sensation that blossoms when you see a loved one after a long absence, hear an exquisite violin solo, or relish an incredible meal. Some of the most brilliant minds in human history have pondered consciousness, and after a few thousand years we still can't say for sure if it is an intangible phenomenon or maybe even a kind of substance different from matter. We know it arises in the brain, but we don't know how or where in the brain. We don't even know if it requires specialized brain cells (or neurons) or some sort of special circuit arrangement of them.

Kurzweil, Ray (2005). The singularity is near: When humans transcend biology. NY: Viking Press.

Lloyd, Robin (2/21/08). Virtual teachers outperform real thing. Digital tutors help children and adults develop advanced skill. Retrieved 2/26/08: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23276977/. Quoting from the article:

Virtual characters and digital tutors are helping children and adults develop advanced social and language skills that can be tough to learn via conventional approaches, according to researchers who briefed reporters here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Justine Cassell of Northwestern University has found that children with autism can develop advanced social skills by interacting with a "virtual child" that they might not develop by hanging out with real children or teachers. Cassell is credited with developing the Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA), a virtual human capable of interacting with humans using language and gestures.

This article gives some insights into the general idea that eventually there will be many teaching/learning situations in which Computer-Assisted Learning will out perform our human teachers. The following quote from the article helps illustrate some of the progress occurring in CAL. It refers to Baldi, a CAL system used in teaching remedial readers, children with language challenges and anyone learning a second language.

Baldi can be programmed to enhance "error-free learning" such that the tutor doesn't say, "That's wrong," when students make mistakes, but instead offers informative feedback that helps students see their error and do better with their next chance to answer a question.

Moursund, D.G. (2005, 2006). Brief introduction to educational implications of Artificial Intelligence. Free. Access at http://uoregon.edu/~moursund/Books/AIBook/index.htm.

Olsen, Stefanie (9/7/07). Coming to grips with intelligent machines. CNET News.com. Retrieved 9/9/07: http://news.com.com/Coming+to+grips+with+intelligent+machines/2100-11394_3-6206637.html.

[edit] Author or Authors

The initial version of this page was written by David Moursund.