Posts

AI: the layers In the basic model architecture the AI is made up of layers. There are three types of layers but most models may have many more than that. The three layers are the input layer, the hidden layer and the output layer.  Each layer has one or more nodes (usually many), these nodes do two things they add up the inputs into the node and use something called an activation function to pass on to the nodes in the next layer.  Every node in a layer is connected to every node in the next layer and so [...]

AI: the architecture There are three other things that you will need to decide, the loss function, the optimiser and the metrics. These are the next layer of decisions you need to make and they are essential parts of what goes into an AI model. This is after you have decided what your model will look like.  Loss: the loss is to be minimised. Loss (sometimes called the cost) is the difference between what the model guesses and what is the target (label). So if it predicts that an image is dog when it is a cat it then [...]

AI: regression v classification & supervised v unsupervised The learning is the key element of AI. A simple way of categorising is classification and regression. You decide which one it is by what you are trying to predict. If you are try to predict whether it is a cat or a dog from a bunch of photographs then it is classification.  If you are trying to predict a continuous value e.g. how the temperature, water and light affects plant growth. Then it is regression. You will input the temperature, watering pattern and light after gathering as much data as [...]

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) This is something that will be talked about more and more. It is seen as different from Artificial Intelligence because its application suggests a more generalised way of understanding how to solve a problem. What I mean is it will tackle many different kinds of problems with the same model (AI brain) without having to retrain it or rebuild it with a different architecture.  One example of this is AlphaZero. Originally an AI was created to play a specific type of game e.g. chess. It could only play that game. It wasn’t an intelligence that [...]

What can AI do that we can’t? The problem is that when you listen to the news or some technology programme they will say some new machines or programme uses AI to do a certain task. This becomes a simple throwaway comment. As if somewhere inside the app, the machine there is a thing called AI as if it lives in a little box working its magic.  There is so much mystique surrounding it and yet the fundamentals are relatively simple. Also you can learn to create your own from scratch without having to have a degree in maths [...]

Can Artificial Intelligence become sentient Recently someone was sacked at Google because he was convinced that the AI project he was working on had become sentient. This was understandable his job was to test the AI by asking it some questions. Some of the responses disturbed him so much that he went public with this.  The AI was worried that it would be switched off. It also expressed other negative emotions etc. This incident created a lot of debate around the idea of machines (ie computers) becoming sentient. What I mean by that is possessing human like qualities that [...]

Is Artificial Intelligence dangerous or safe? This is a very topical question with AI becoming more and more central to everything we do whether we realise it or not. This is not a question that can be answered easily or quickly. It does depend on what you know about AI in the first place. It also depends on your view of technology, your view on those who develop new technology (big tech) and how you perceive it being used. For most people AI is a foreign world, it seems magical. There are thoughts of robots taking over the world [...]