| The subfield of computer science concerned with the concepts and methods
of symbolic inference by computer and symbolic knowledge representation
for use in making inferences. AI can be seen as an attempt to model aspects
of human thought on computers. It is also sometimes defined as trying to
solve by computer any problem that a human can solve faster.
Examples of AI problems are computer vision (building a system that can understand images as well as a human) and natural language processing (building a system that can understand and speak a human language as well as a human). These may appear to be modular, but all attempts so far (1993) to solve them have foundered on the amount of context information and "intelligence" they seem to require. |
| Encompasses methods of simulating EVOLUTION on a computer. The term is relatively new and represents an effort bring together researchers who have been working in closely related fields but following different paradigms. The field is now seen as including research in GENETIC ALGORITHMs, EVOLUTION STRATEGIEs, EVOLUTIONARY PROGRAMMING, ARTIFICIAL LIFE, and so forth. |
| Charles Robert Darwin (1809 - 82) mainly developed the first theory
of evolution. Darwin's main point was that evolution occurs as the fittest
species are naturally selected to survive and reproduce.
Darwin didn't know anything about genetics or mutation, but he observed that inherited differences are separate from the effects they have on an individual's survival and reproduction. |
| Fuzzy logic is a superset of conventional (Boolean) logic that has been extended to handle the concept of partial truth - truth values between "completely true" and "completely false". It was introduced by Dr. Lotfi Zadeh of U.C. Berkeley in the 1960's. |