The Quest for Artificial Intelligence
Published on 30. October 2009
Book
Hardback
578 pages
978-0-521-11639-8 (ISBN)
Description
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a field within computer science that is attempting to build enhanced intelligence into computer systems. This book traces the history of the subject, from the early dreams of eighteenth-century (and earlier) pioneers to the more successful work of today's AI engineers. AI is becoming more and more a part of everyone's life. The technology is already embedded in face-recognizing cameras, speech-recognition software, Internet search engines, and health-care robots, among other applications. The book's many diagrams and easy-to-understand descriptions of AI programs will help the casual reader gain an understanding of how these and other AI systems actually work. Its thorough (but unobtrusive) end-of-chapter notes containing citations to important source materials will be of great use to AI scholars and researchers. This book promises to be the definitive history of a field that has captivated the imaginations of scientists, philosophers, and writers for centuries.
Reviews / Votes
'... [a] balanced look at what AI has been able to do during its first 50 years of existence. His personal recollections and the rationale behind many decisions, as retold by an insider, make this book a unique contribution, interesting both for the informed and for the general reader. Both kinds of readers can learn a lot from Nilsson's book about the evolution of this now-mature research field. The book is written in a friendly conversational style, without any unnecessary mathematical formalisms, and is richly illustrated with many diagrams that depict representative AI systems and photographs of the many innovators that led to their development.' Fernando Berzal, Reviews.comMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
2 Tables, unspecified; 10 Plates, unspecified; 116 Halftones, unspecified; 101 Line drawings, unspecified
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
1027 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-11639-8 (9780521116398)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Nils J. Nilsson
The Quest for Artificial Intelligence
E-Book
08/2013
1st Edition
Cambridge University Press
€32.49
Available for download
Nils J. Nilsson
The Quest for Artificial Intelligence
Book
10/2009
Cambridge University Press
€96.60
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Nils J. Nilsson
Quest for Artificial Intelligence
E-Book
10/2009
Cambridge University Press
€26.99
Available for download
Person
Nils J. Nilsson, Kumagai Professor of Engineering (Emeritus) in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University, California, received his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford in 1958. He spent twenty-three years at the Artificial Intelligence Center of SRI International working on statistical and neural-network approaches to pattern recognition, co-inventing the A* heuristic search algorithm and the STRIPS automatic planning system, directing work on the integrated mobile robot, SHAKEY, and collaborating in the development of the PROSPECTOR expert system. He has published five textbooks on artificial intelligence. Professor Nilsson returned to Stanford in 1985 as the Chairman of the Department of Computer Science, a position he held until August 1990. Besides teaching courses on artificial intelligence and on machine learning, he has conducted research on flexible robots that are able to react to dynamic worlds, plan courses of action, and learn from experience. Professor Nilsson served on the editorial boards of the journal Artificial Intelligence and of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. He was an Area Editor for the Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery. He is a past-president and Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a co-founder of Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. Professor Nilsson is a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He is a recipient of the IEEE Neural-Network Pioneer award, the IJCAI Research Excellence award, and the AAAI Distinguished Service award.
Content
Part I. Beginnings: 1. Dreams and dreamers; 2. Clues; Part II. Early Explorations: 1950s and 1960s: 3. Gatherings; 4. Pattern recognition; 5. Early heuristic programs; 6. Semantic representations; 7. Natural language processing; 8. 1960s infrastructure; Part III. Efflorescence: Mid-1960s to Mid-1970s: 9. Computer vision; 10. 'Hand-Eye' research; 11. Knowledge representation and reasoning; 12. Mobile robots; 13. Progress in natural language processing; 14. Game playing; 15. The dendral project; 16. Conferences, books, and funding; Part IV. Applications and Specializations: 1970s to Early 1980s: 17. Speech recognition and understanding systems; 18. Consulting systems; 19. Understanding queries and signals; 20. Progress in computer vision; 21. Boomtimes; Part V. 'New Generation' Projects: 22. The Japanese create a stir; 23. Darpa's strategic computing program; Part VI. Entr'acte: 24. Speed bumps; 25. Controversies and alternative paradigms; Part VII. The Growing Armamentarium: From the 1980s Onward: 26. Reasoning and representation; 27. Other approaches to reasoning and representation; 28. Bayesian networks; 29. Machine learning; 30. Natural languages and natural scenes; 31. Intelligent system architectures; Part VIII. Modern AI: Today and Tomorrow: 32. Extraordinary achievements; 33. Ubiquitous artificial intelligence; 34. Smart tools; 35. The quest continues.