CS 5541 Study Questions and Homework 1

Homework (15 points) due Wednesday, September 17, 2003.

Homework assignment

For Homework 1, turn in your answers for the following study questions:

#1 [3 pts]
#2 [2 pts]
#3 [2 pts]
#10 [2 pts]
#11 [2 pt]
#13 [1 pt]
#14 [1 pt]
#19 [2 pts]

Study questions

  1. What is the Turing Test? (a) Describe it carefully. (b) What are some problems with the Turing Test? (c) How could it be improved? (d) Would the Turing Test succeed as a test for the intelligence of a 1-year-old human baby? A full grown lizard?
  2. What is empiricism?
  3. What is rationalism?
  4. Give two examples of AI systems that have an empiricist basis. Explain why each example has this basis.
  5. Give two examples of AI systems that have a rationalist basis. Explain why each example has this basis.
  6. What is Classical AI? Does classical AI have a rationalist or empiricist basis? Explain your answer.
  7. Give an example of a physical symbol system. Explain why it is a physical symbol system.
  8. Give an example of a physically grounded system. Explain why it is physically grounded.
  9. Consider the problem of "stacking", in its computer science context and in its real world context. Does the solution to the computer science problem of "stacking" involve intelligence? I.e., when a program that uses a "stack" runs, does it have intelligence? Does the real world problem of "stacking" involve intelligence? E.g., when a person has to physically stack items on top of each other, does this involve intelligence? Keep in mind our class discussion of different types and forms of intelligence!
  10. Suppose we find an 'intelligent system'. According to the physical symbol system hypothesis, what will the structure of this intelligent system involve?
  11. According to the physical grounding hypothesis, what is a necessary component of an intelligent system?
  12. In class, we have considered an evolutionary metaphor to help us understand artificial intelligence. How does this evolutionary metaphor help us understand AI systems?
  13. Give a Python language expression that will return the first element of a list, given the list.

In the following questions, assume the assignments:

a = [1, 2, 3]

variables = {'foo' : 1, 'red' : 100, 'counter' : 30}

  1. What does a[1:] evaluate to in Python?
  2. What does ['a', 'b', 'c'][1:] evaluate to in Python?
  3. What does a + a evaluate to in Python?
  4. What does ('a' in a) evaluate to in Python?
  5. What does variables['foo'] evaluate to in Python?
  6. After execution of the statement:
    variables['foo'] += 10
     what does variables['foo'] evaluate to in Python?
  7. Is it likely that only one of the Physical Symbol System Hypothesis or the Physical Grounding Hypothesis will turn out to be true? Explain your answer.