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A Guide to Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Students

Artificial Intelligence at ECU

Purple and Gold Pixel Art Depicting the Letters AI created Using Dal-E

What is Artificial Intelligence?

John McCarthy, Stanford University, 1955                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

 

 

"Artificial Intelligence (AI), a term coined by emeritus Stanford Professor John McCarthy in 1955 (pictured left), was defined by him as 'the science and engineering of making intelligent machines'. Much research has humans program machines to behave in a clever way, like playing chess, but, today, we emphasize machines that can learn at least somewhat like human beings do."

    --  Prof. Christopher Manning, September 2020, Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory,  Stanford University

https://hai.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/2020-09/AI-Definitions-HAI.pdf

What is generative artifical intelligence?

Generative AI

Definition according to ChatGPT (June 2024):
Generative AI is a subset of artificial intelligence that aims to create new data from the training data it has been provided. Generative models learn the true data distribution of the training set so as to generate new data points with some variations. These new data points can be in any form, such as images, music, speech, or text.

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"These tools use large language models to provide bots with the data they need to reply to a prompt you have given it appropriately. For example, when ChatGPT writes a response to a prompt, it provides text based on what words came before and what is the most likely next word. Because AI uses natural language and computes so quickly, it can often seem like the chatbot is, in fact, intelligent. 

The field of AI is changing at a rapid pace. We know that these generative tools help users synthesize information and create content (code, essays, art, music, etc.). However, these tools can also "hallucinate", or make up facts or sources and create biased content."

---  URL: https://ucsd.libguides.com/AI  Geisel Library and Sally T. WongAvery Library, University of California San Diego, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Unleash Imagination

Image Created by Dal-E respresenting AI's ability to unleash the human imagination.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) unlocks the vast potential of human imagination by automating routine tasks and processing large datasets, freeing us to focus on creativity and innovation. It provides artists, writers, and thinkers with advanced tools to transcend conventional boundaries and generate unprecedented ideas and solutions. Through machine learning algorithms and generative models, AI inspires new artistic expressions and assists in solving complex problems, expanding the horizons of what we can envision and achieve in a new era of imaginative exploration.

"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible." 
Arthur C. Clarke