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Artificial Intelligence
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It is really charming to think that 'a machine can think'. It is
now
possible for a computer to have natural perception as of human.
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Pattern recognition for Eyes. |
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Sound Synthesizer for Ears. |
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Natural Language Processing for reading. |
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ANN for Brain. |
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It will be interesting to note that, a computer, if it is capable of
processing natural language such as English, Tamil etc., it can learn by
itself by reading scanned books or by surfing the Internet. |
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Computers can compose music, listen to it to find out whether it is good
or not etc., all this can happen.
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But critics of AI says that a computer can never achieve what is called
Intelligence. For me it's enough if my computer greets me 'Hi Madhu',
and says some enthusiastic words if I am dull. |
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Mr. Edison, founder of Big Blue (IBM),
said "Men must think, Machine must work", but their product 'Deep Blue'
itself had changed that (Deep Blue is a chess master). |
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Whatever may be the case, in near feature we are all going to speak with
something which don't have life, mind, emotion and soul. |
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Computer Theory
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This is the next thing I often think of. All
of our computers are theoretically equivalent to a Turing Machine
(Next time if somebody ask you 'what computer you have?', your reply may
be 'Turing Machine'). Why it is not possible to
design an abstract machine powerful than 'Turing Machine'. I feel, here
lies the answer to the question "What is Computing?". |
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It is not that everything in this world is
computable. Some problems don't have computational nature. I can't write
an algorithm for loving my spouse. Some problems have computational
nature but don't have computational solutions. (E.g. Give me an
algorithm for finding out 425645565674126463 is a Prime Number or Not) |
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It is necessary for us to find out things that can compute for us,
cheaper and faster than what electronics do now.
DNA Computing is a promising field in this direction. To find out such a
computing element we need to answer the question "What is Computing?".
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Next we must find out a Language that forms a good interface between we,
the humans and the computers. How hard it is for us to learn a new
computer language and to express our ideas in terms of Algorithms! |
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Similarly, it is too hard for a computer to understand our language.
Because our language has ambiguous and context sensitive constructs. If
my Dad says, "Madhu, Open up!!", it may be either my mouth or the door
of my house. I resolve this using my common sense. But, how can a
computer understand that without being intelligent. |
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My computer (Wipro Voyager) can sort numbers, plays songs, show
movies provided everything has been given to it before hand. But is it
possible for my computer:
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To generate algorithms of its own. |
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To correct and upgrade, update the code by itself (I often dream
that how it will be if my computer switches on by itself and
threatening me to throw back the CD I have inserted). |
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To have the feeling of existence as we have. |
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To find a Ubiquitous language for both human and computer. |
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I feel terrible to think about two entities
that can communicate with out human acknowledgement or understanding. Human Genome Project is one
such thing. Where humans rarely understood what that genomic codes mean.
But a fully equipped computer can be able to trace the meaning of the
codes. So this means, we can get the meaning of the codes only if a
computer tells us (It will tell as long as it is an Idiot Box). |
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Computer Game Programming
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This is the next field that interests me. The
way the games are programmed is fascinating. This field interested
me when I tried to write a 2D racer game. I felt the difficulty of
representing the hindrances and changes that comes in track on the
course of race. Then I happened to play
Need For Speed, which inspired me a lot. |
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'Prince of Persia 3D' is the next game, where the objects are texture
mapped using plain BMP files. I replaced this BMP files with my own and
I have seen exciting results (Prince became one of my friends!!!). |
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Next game I hacked is the age old 'Prince'. Me and Prasanna Venkatesh
of Information Technology and Management, did that by changing the
animation sequence files. When you run the game, you will go mad. When
you order your Prince to jump, he will run! |
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Once in my Fifth Semester, I wished to develop a small game around 'Chith Vihar'.
It is where our
department is housed. But modeling difficulty of Chith Vihar,
massiveness of the code needed, made me to feel that I can't
finish it before my course ends. So I dropped it. Using tools such as
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Game Studio. |
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Dark Basic. |
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Quake 3 cloning tools and its source code. |
we can design games faster than ever before. Open GL standards can be
used, where we can have all that is needed to design a game and to
control its action. Thing is that it needs some time and dedicated team
work. |
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AI based games are tough to design (At least I feel like that).
They need perfect understanding of how Game Search Trees work. Or else
we can use Predicate Engines for designing strategic games. I have AI as
a subject in my 7th Semester. I have an idea of designing a modular game
that plays within itself and gathers experience, so that, it will be
tough to get it to its knees. |
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