Lecture on Artificial Intelligence for senior Science students

On 16 August 2019, Dr Raghava Mutharaju, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at IIIT Delhi came to share his vast knowledge on Artificial Intelligence. The session was held for the students of classes XI and XII who have taken Science and IP as their subjects.

The speaker gave a brief introduction about the topic and explained the difference between natural and artificial intelligence.

Natural intelligence is the intelligence we, as humans and creatures, possess. It mainly comprises our logic, memories and learning from life experiences. Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, is the intelligence given to machines and objects by us, humans. A machine learns from the data set given to it by the user or the developer. The algorithms used by machines to learn and evolve are called Genetic Algorithms.

Later on, he told us about how a machine interacts and engages with the world. Sensors physically present in the machine sense and capture specific physical changes and send the raw data collected by it. The machine logic later identifies this raw data as stimuli. This identification uses genetic algorithm to better understand the stimuli and gets better at it with each iteration of learning.

To engage with the world, a machine uses specific parts known as actuators. Some examples may be:

Speakers

Motors: for moving around

Display

Dr. Mutharaju also spoke about robotics and its applications. Robotics is basically the study of AI but with an extra emphasis on the actuators and sensors. Robotics in its essence is not the robots seen in media, but the integration of sensors, logic boards, actuators and their presentation.

Robotics has many applications. Some of them are:

Autonomous vehicles

Navigation Bots

Path finding Algorithm

A lot of students were curious to know more about the applications of AI and asked questions. The talk ended with two pertinent questions: Will the coming of AI reduce the jobs available now? and Will robots eventually take over the world?

Darsh Kumar, XII-A