Unit 2 Artificial Intelligence, Its Creation and Place in the Present-Day Life

Task 1. Check your knowledge. Say whether the statements are true or false.

1. Artificial intelligence appeared a lot earlier than cybernetics, in the 1930s.

2. At the end of the XXth – the beginning of the XXIst century achieved its greatest success.

3. AI creation is based on the idea that human intelligence can be simulated by a machine.

4. There are no differences between the principles of cybernetics and AI.

5. Problems that are typically solved by machines require little information to be processed.

6. having a value which cannot be determined but only described probabilistically

Task 2. Read the text. Choose the best sentence (a-j) to fill each of the gaps (1-10) in the text.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science which aims to create it. Textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents," where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximize its chances of success.(1) ____________

Ironically but logically, AI and cybernetics have each gone in and out of fashion and influence in the search for machine intelligence. Cybernetics started in advance of AI, but AI dominated between 1960 and 1985, when repeated failures to achieve its claim of building "intelligent machines" finally caught up with it. (2) _____________. In the early 80s, AI research was revived by the commercial success of expert systems, a form of AI program that simulated the knowledge and analytical skills of one or more human experts. By 1985 the market for AI had reached over a billion dollars. At the same time, Japan's fifth generation computer project inspired the U.S and British governments to restore funding for academic research in the field. However, beginning with the collapse of the Lisp Machine market in 1987, AI once again fell into disrepute, and a second, longer lasting AI winter began.

In the 90s and early XXIst century, AI achieved its greatest successes. (3)_____________. Nowadays, artificial intelligence is used for logistics, data mining, medical diagnosis and many other areas throughout the technology industry.

The field of AI was founded on the claim that a central property of human beings, intelligence can be so precisely described that it can be simulated by a machine. This raises philosophical issues about the nature of the mind and limits of scientific hubris, issues which have been addressed by myth, fiction and philosophy since antiquity. Artificial intelligence today has become an essential part of the technology industry, providing the heavy lifting for many of the most difficult problems in computer science.

AI is predicated on the presumption that knowledge is a commodity that can be stored inside of a machine, and that the application of such stored knowledge to the real world constitutes intelligence. (4)____________. Cybernetics in contrast has evolved from a "constructivist" view of the world where objectivity derives from shared agreement about meaning, and where information is an attribute of an interaction rather than a commodity stored in a computer. These differences determine fundamentally the source and direction of research performed from a cybernetic, versus an AI, stance.

Researchers in Artificial Intelligence (AI) use computer technology to build intelligent machines; they consider implementation (that is, working examples) as the most important result. (5) _____________. They consider powerful descriptions as the most important result.

Mechanical or "formal" reasoning has been developed by philosophers and mathematicians since antiquity. The study of logic led directly to the invention of the programmable digital electronic computer, based on the work of mathematician Alan Turing and others. (6)______________. This, along with recent discoveries in neurology, information theory and cybernetics, inspired a small group of researchers to begin to seriously consider the possibility of building an electronic brain.

Knowledge representation and knowledge engineering are central to AI research. Many of the problems machines are expected to solve will require extensive knowledge about the world. Among the things that AI needs to represent are: objects, properties, categories and relations between objects; situations, events, states and time; causes and effects; knowledge about knowledge (what we know about what other people know); and many other, less well researched domains.

Subproblems in AI

Machine learning. Machine learning has been central to AI research from the beginning. (7) _____________. This classification is used to determine what category something belongs in, after seeing a number of examples of things from several categories. Regression takes a set of numerical input/output examples and attempts to discover a continuous function that would generate the outputs from the inputs. In reinforcement learning the agent is rewarded for good responses and punished for bad ones. These can be analyzed in terms of decision theory, using concepts like utility. The mathematical analysis of machine learning algorithms and their performance is a branch of theoretical computer science known as computational learning theory.

Natural language processing. Natural language processing gives machines the ability to read and understand the languages that the human beings speak. Many researchers hope that a sufficiently powerful natural language processing system would be able to acquire knowledge on its own, by reading the existing text available over the internet. (8) ____________

Machine Perception, Motion, Computer Vision, and Speech Recognition. The field of robotics is closely related to AI. (9) _____________. Machine perception is the ability to use input from sensors (such as cameras, microphones, sonar and others more exotic) to deduce aspects of the world. Computer vision is the ability to analyze visual input. A few selected subproblems are speech recognition, facial recognition and object recognition.

Social intelligence. Emotion and social skills play two roles for an intelligent agent. First, it must be able to predict the actions of others, by understanding their motives and emotional states. (10) _____________. Also, for good human-computer interaction, an intelligent machine also needs to display emotions. At the very least it must appear polite and sensitive to the humans it interacts with. At best, it should have normal emotions itself.

Creativity. A sub-field of AI addresses creativity both theoretically (from a philosophical and psychological perspective) and practically (via specific implementations of systems that generate outputs that can be considered creative).

a) This success is due to several factors: the incredible power of computers today, a greater emphasis on solving specific subproblems, the creation of new ties between AI and other fields working on similar problems, and above all a new commitment by researchers to solid mathematical methods and rigorous scientific standards.

b) Practitioners of cybernetics use models of organizations, feedback, goals, and conversation to understand the capacity and limits of any system (technological, biological, or social).

c) John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956, defines it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines."

d) Some straightforward applications of natural language processing include information retrieval (or text mining) and machine translation.

e) Turing's theory of computation suggested that a machine, by shuffling symbols as simple as "0" and "1", could simulate any conceivable act of mathematical deduction.

f) This involves elements of game theory, decision theory, as well as the ability to model human emotions and the perceptual skills to detect emotions.

g) These difficulties in AI led to renewed search for solutions that mirror prior approaches of cybernetics.

h) Unsupervised learning is the ability to find patterns in a stream of input while supervised learning includes both classification and numerical regression.

i) Only within such a "realist" view of the world can, for example, rule-based expert systems appear to be a route to intelligent machines.

j) That is why intelligence is required for robots to be able to handle such tasks as object manipulation and navigation, with sub-problems of localization (knowing where you are), mapping (learning what is around you) and motion planning (figuring out how to get there).

Task 3. Find words in the text to the definitions.

1. technology that allows a computer to do something in an intelligent way, similar to the way in which a human would do it;

2. to become aware of sth through the senses, especially the sight; recognize or observe; to come to comprehend;

3. a mutual or reciprocal action or influence;

4. to reproduce the conditions of a situation, etc., as in carrying out an experiment;

5. the quality of practical use; usefulness; serviceability;

6. recovery, restoration, or rectification of the necessary information;

7. the study of strategies for decision-making under conditions of uncertainty in such a way as to maximize the expected utility;

8. the material produced, manufactured, yielded;

Task 4. Match words to make phrases

artificial mining

analytical recognition

data deduction

expert skills

formal processing

mathematical intelligence

decision reasoning

language manipulation

speech system

object theory

Task 5. Complete the sentences with the words given below.

interaction, sensors, artificial intelligence, feedback, natural language processing system, commodity, data mining, robots

1. Difficulties in _______________ led to renewed search for solutions that mirror prior approaches of cybernetics.

2. Artificial intelligence is used for _________________ in the technology industry.

3. AI presumes that knowledge is a __________________ that can be stored inside of a machine.

4. In cybernetics information is an attribute of ________________ rather than a commodity stored in a computer.

5. Practitioners of cybernetics use _________________ to understand the capacity and limits of any technological, biological, or social system.

6. Researchers hope that _________________ would be able to acquire knowledge on its own, by reading the existing text available over the internet.

7. Intelligence is required for ________________ to be able to handle such tasks as object manipulation and navigation.

8. Machine perception is the ability to use input from _________________ such as cameras, microphones, sonar and others more exotic to deduce aspects of the world.

Task 6. Answer the questions.

1. What is artificial intelligence?

2. What problems did artificial intelligence face in the process of its development?

3. What is the success of artificial intelligence at the end of the 90s and at the beginning of the XXIth century due to?

4. What philosophical issues does artificial intelligence raise?

5. What is the difference between the view of cybernetics and artificial intelligence on the world?

6. What do researchers and practitioners in artificial intelligence use? What do they want to achieve?

Unit 3

Desktop Publishing System. Stages of DTP.

Task 1. Check your knowledge before you read the text. Match words to their definitions.

1) desktop publishing	a) a set of letters, numbers, etc. of a particular design, used in printing
2) typeface	b) the process of arranging text and pictures in a magazine, an advertisement, etc. in a clear and effective way; the result of this process
3) application	c) to include text, a piece of computer code or a computer program as part of a file, an Internet page, an email, etc
4) kerning	d) the use of a small computer and a printer to produce a small book, a magazine or other printed material
5) graphic design	e) the adjustment of space between the letters of words to improve the appearance of text matter
6) template	f) a program designed to do a particular job; a piece of software
7) to format	g) a thing that is used as a model for producing other similar examples
8) to embed	h) to arrange text or numbers in a particular way on a page or a screen

Task 2. Put the tasks of desktop publishing into the order of their performance. Read the text.

Desktop publishing (DTP) is an application of computers or workstations that enables small companies and individuals to produce high-quality printed documents, i.e. reports, advertising, magazines, etc., to near-typeset quality. Modern systems, which simulate many of the functions of professional typesetting systems, consist of a personal computer, using DTP software, and a laser printer. The software is designed to format text into pages using a wide range of different typefaces. A common feature is the ability to preview each page on the computer's screen before it is printed and to import pictures and diagrams into the page.

A desktop publishing system allows you to use different typefaces, specify various margins and justifications, and embed illustrations and graphs directly into the text. The most powerful desktop publishing systems enable you to create illustrations, while less powerful systems let you insert illustrations created by other programs.

As word-processing programs become more and more powerful, the line separating such programs from desktop publishing systems is becoming blurred. In general, though, desktop publishing applications give you more control over typographical characteristics, such as kerning, and provide more support for full-color output.

A particularly important feature of desktop publishing systems is that they enable you to see on the display screen exactly how the document will appear when printed. Systems that support this feature are called WYSIWYGs (what you see is what you get).

Until recently, hardware costs made desktop publishing systems impractical for most uses. But as the prices of personal computers and printers have fallen, desktop publishing systems have become increasingly popular for producing newsletters, brochures, books, and other documents that formerly required a typesetter.

Once you have produced a document with a desktop publishing system, you can output it directly to a printer or you can produce a PostScript file which you can then take to a service bureau. The service bureau has special machines that convert the PostScript file to film, which can then be used to make plates for offset printing. Offset printing produces higher-quality documents, especially if color is used, but is generally more expensive than laser printing.

Learning how to do desktop publishing involves mastering desktop publishing tasks that fall into 6 areas:

1. _____________________

2. _____________________

3. _____________________

4. _____________________

5. _____________________

6. _____________________

Although presented step-by-step, learning and doing desktop publishing is not an entirely linear progression. You'll find yourself going back and forth many times between tasks and between each phase both while learning desktop publishing and when creating desktop published documents.