What is Artificial Intelligence?

A hypothetical question was raised during a forum on robot morality "can a machine be programmed to act or decide morally, as much as humans?"

In a recent paper published in the International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems, the authors Luís Moniz Pereira of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, in Portugal and Ari Saptawijaya of the Universitas Indonesia, described a method for computers to calculate the future consequences of hypothetical moral judgments.

The paper, Modelling Morality with Prospective Logic, made particular mention "that morality is no longer the exclusive realm of human philosophers".

They've proven their findings by creating models of moral dilemmas inherent in a specific problem called "the trolley problem" and in creating a computer system that delivers moral judgments that conform to human results.

They have cited scenarios that build their theories around the "trolley problem".

And based of these typical scenarios where moral judgments are drawn, the authors claimed that they have been successful in modeling these difficult moral problems in computer logic by resolving the "hidden rules" that people use in making moral judgments and then modeling them for the computer using prospective logic programs.

Click here to read more about Robots Make Moral Judgments, "The Trolley Problem"

Predicted fMRI images for celery and airplane show significant similarities with the observed images for each word. Red indicates areas of high activity, blue indicates low activity. Credit: Courtesy of Science

For many years, scientists have been trying to find ways to decipher human thoughts. It took several algorithms and neuro-scans to get to the bottom of how the brain really works.

In their most recent study, a computer scientist, Tom Mitchell, and a cognitive neuroscientist, Marcel Just, both from Carnegie Mellon University, used fMRI data to develop a sophisticated computational models.

These models were designed to predict the brain's response in relation to concrete nouns, or things that we experience through our senses.

The researchers created models for 60 concrete nouns which have been taken fMRI activation patterns. These models were also used to analyze text corpus, a set of text containing a trillion words noting any relationship of each noun to a set of 25 verbs associated with sensory or motor functions.

Combining fMRI data and analysis of the text corpus, the computer was able to predict the brain activity pattern of thousands of other concrete nouns.

Using this method, the researchers have determined that using their computational model is significantly better than chance. An important implication to understanding brain-related diseases and memory losses.

Click here to read more about Brain Imaging and Computational Modeling, Mind Reading using fMRI

Now that IntelliJ has gone open source I thought it would be helpful to see how it compared to the other popular JAVA IDEs NetBeans and Eclipse. I'm personally have been using NetBeans & Glassfish for many years now but I'll try not to let it cloud my judgement.

IntelliJ IDE

Code Formatting:

Intelli J IDE, Eclipse IDE and Java NetBeans IDE perform similar in Code formatting. Both of these technologies format whole source, format selected part only and user`s specific formatting of code.

Finding and Replacing:

All the three IDE`s support finding and replacing with options such as case matching, regular expressions, etc.

Eclipse contains a common dialog box for both finding and replacing. The dialog box overlaps the editor’s window.

Intelli J has special dialog window for replacing and a fast pop-up top bar for finding. Intelli J has cleverly designed it.

NetBeans has a similar approach but the pop up window is at the bottom of editor’s window.

NetBeans IDE

Code Completion:

Code completion is similar in all of the three IDE`s and they have the same design. Intelli J has a special feature which is called “Camel Hump” which searches an appropriate text amongst the list of words.

Use Hints:

Eclipse: - A bulb icon appears on the left side bar with line numbers on appropriate line. When the cursor is hovered on the bulb a text with hint explanation pop`s up and a whole list of solutions are displayed.

IntelliJ: - IntelliJ user needs to practically click on the hint text available for List of solutions which are made public.

NetBeans: - In NetBeans user needs to scroll on the hint text for possible solutions.

Macros:

NetBeans: - Netbeans supports Macros editing and support. User can remove, rename, edit and set shortcut. Good thing is user can edit shortcut for a macro on every two places, bad thing is user cannot run a macro without setting a shortcut.

IntelliJ: - In IntelliJ user can record, edit and rename the macro. User cannot set the Macro shortcut. Once the user sets the macro`s name it is automatically added.

Eclipse: - Eclipse IDE does not support the Macros feature.

Syntax highlighting:

All the three IDE`s support syntax highlighting. They allow the user to change the pre defined colors.

Eclipse IDE

Code Navigation

Navigator:

Some of the various features which are present are:
1) Structured view
2) Filters
3) Quick search
4) Pop up navigator

NetBeans IDE, IntelliJ and Eclipse support structured view, filters and quick search. Pop up navigator feature is not supported by NetBeans IDE and IntelliJ whereas Eclipse supports this feature.

Tasks Management:

There are certain sub sections for tasks management which are:
1) List of tasks in active source file
2) List of tasks in project
3) Filtering
4) New task definition

Eclipse: - It has classical view of tasks. It allows the user to sort out tasks by available fields such as description, resource, path, location and priority. It supports List of tasks in the project, Filtering and new task definition.

NetBeans IDE: - NetBeans IDE has similar approach like Eclipse but it does not support task priority. NetBeans IDE shows the errors in different window.

IntelliJ IDE: - It has a tree view of tasks. Leaves of the tree are tasks whereas the nodes are files. Moving from one task to another task is difficult and a complex process. There is a default TODO command in the settings.

Refactoring:

There are certain sub sections for refracting such as
1) Find usages
2) Rename
3) Move
4) Safe delete

Eclipse IDE: - Eclipse IDE supports find usages, rename and move features. When the user wants to change or rename a method, identifier will be highlighted and user can change the name of the method.

IntelliJ: - IntelliJ supports Find usages, Rename, Safe delete and Move. A single view is presented before the user they are new name, refractor, preview and cancel button.

NetBeans IDE: - NetBeans supports all the four functions which are find usages, rename, move and safe delete. Netbeans preview is similar to the Eclipse design. The preview window is displayed at the bottom of the screen which makes it difficult for the coder to view.

Automatic Code Generation:

Automatic code generation has two sub sections which are
1) Constructor
2) Setters/Getters

NetBeans IDE: - NetBeans IDE supports the functions constructors and

IntelliJ IDE: - Supports the functions Constructors and setters.

Eclipse: - Eclipse has similar design and supports constructors and setters. It has some other capabilities such as insertion point where code can be generated.

Frameworks and Technologies Supported	IntelliJ (Community Edition free)	NetBeans	Eclipse
OSGi
Grails
Rails
JSP
Servlets 3.0
JavaServer Faces 1.0, 1.2
EJB 3.0, 3.1
Web Beans			?
Bean validation
Flex, Air			?
GWT 1.X, 2.0
Struts 1.2, 2
Spring 2.5, 3.0
JBoss Seam
Hibernate
JPA 1.0, 2.0
JAX-WS, Apache AXIS
REST WebServices
Tapestry
Google App Engine
Application Servers
Apache Tomcat
GlassFish v2, v3
JBoss
WebLogic
WebSphere
Geronimo
Resin

So you may be wondering just what is artificial intelligence? Many people think of AI and relate it to movies about robots traveling through time, killing people, or other outlandish tales.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

One of the best movies that perhaps relates to AI, especially in the relatively near future would have to be the actual movie A.I. This describes a whole generation of androids that think for themselves, and some not even knowing they were robots in the first place.

If you type 'what is artificial intelligence' into a search engine on the computer you will be bombarded with so much scientific information you may have your own system overload. There is talk about the brain, and intelligence, and computers. It is greatly overwhelming and hard to understand most of it. It takes time and creative thinking to find information that you can relate too.

What is artificial intelligence?

Put simply it's the study of programming software to make computers and other items smarter. It also means that programming software to learn from mistakes, or errors and fix them automatically.

Making computers learn on their own is much less time consuming than having to reprogram it all the time. Robots too have learning capabilities as well. Using censers, cameras, and other kinds of information gathering, they can perform a wide range of different motions, including being able to walk up stairs, dance, and interact with people.

What is artificial intelligence? Well you can see it in action every day. It started out teaching strategy games to computers, like chess. The basic principles of the game were programmed in, as well as what each pieces movements were. As people play against the computer, it learns from your techniques and using that knowledge calculates the best way to beat you.

It can also use what it learns to predict what possible moves you may make, and adjusts strategies accordingly, often calculating many moves ahead. With the human factor, sometimes we do things that are unpredictable, and so if you make a move that wasn't predicted by the computer, it will extrapolate accordingly.

When we play on gaming stations against the computer, this is a form of artificial intelligence as well. With the newer gaming platforms the computer brain uses knowledge programmed into it to act accordingly to your moves, and tries different ways to defeat you, or to help you out. Signals sent from the controller are relayed to the gaming brain and is translated into movement, shooting, etc.

What is artificial intelligence? Making computers and other devices smarter, faster and using your input to do things that make life easier.

You see artificial intelligence in a variety of applications, from smart appliances that will automatically save electricity, to a whole house wired to turn lights on automatically when you enter a room, and turning them off when you leave. Refrigerators than can sense when you are getting low on something and reminds you using a monitor and key pad on the outside of the door.

Coffee makers and other small appliances often have small computers in them that can turn on automatically at a certain time, and have your coffee ready for you when you get up.

The field of artificial intelligence is growing by leaps and bounds. If you have the skills and knowledge, it is possible to get into one of these exciting careers.

You will have a hand at new breakthroughs in robotic sciences, for consumer or military applications, as well as medical and manufacturing technologies. There is a wide array of opportunities that can await you, but will not wait for you.

You can find out more information through the internet, but as I said before, make sure you type in exactly what you're looking for, or you may get more than you bargained for.

You can find out what is artificial intelligence and how it works for you, find a job in this field, and even buy 'smart' products the make daily activities easier to do. There are assortments of robots that you can buy, from small figures that can interact with you, to smart vacuums that can pick up around the house by themselves.