Pervasive Computing Part 1 - AI and Blockchain 2024 PDF

Pervasive Computing Part 1 Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain INF112 Principles Artificial Intelligence aims to mimic or replicate human intelligence to solve complex problems Though Artificial Intelligence designers have made significant progress, these sy...

Pervasive Computing Part 1 Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain INF112 Principles Artificial Intelligence aims to mimic or replicate human intelligence to solve complex problems Though Artificial Intelligence designers have made significant progress, these systems are prone to certain challenges Blockchain technology presents an alternative to centralized storage designs by storing transactions in distributed ledgers Even though Bitcoin is valued at over €10 Billion, no money has actually been inserted into the system itself There are ingoing debates about whether virtual currencies can be used for trading goods and services Learning Outcomes After studying this section, you should be able to: Define Artificial Intelligence. Explain the difference between Artificial Intelligence and Natural Intelligence. List the components of an Artificial Intelligence system. Differentiate between the strengths and weaknesses of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Intelligence. Define Blockchain. Describe the components of Blockchain technology. Explain the differences between centralized databases and distributed ledgers Artificial Intelligence (AI) One of the first people to mention the term Artificial Intelligence was John McCarthy in 1956. He referred to computer systems which could mimic or duplicate the functions of the human brain Another definition: “A type of specialized system which takes on the characteristics of human intelligence.” Artificial Intelligence (AI) What type of human characteristics or functions do you think AI takes on? Do you think AI can mimic these functions well in all scenarios? Artificial Intelligence Systems Components of an Artificial Intelligence system can include the following: People Procedures Hardware Software Data Knowledge What role do you think each of these components play in an AI System? Artificial Intelligence Discussion The following questions have been debated since the 1950s Can computers be programmed to have common sense? Can computers solve problems as well as humans can? Natural vs Artificial Intelligence Ability to Natural Intelligence (Human) Artificial Intelligence (Machine) Low High Low High Use sensors (see, hear, touch,   smell) Be creative and imaginative   Learn from experience   Adapt to new situations   Afford the cost of acquiring   intelligence Acquire a large amount of external   information Use a variety of information sources   Make complex calculations   Transfer information   Make a series of calculations   rapidly and accurately Artificial Intelligence Common Terms (1) Reasoning or planning Ability of a computer system to use patterns and historical data to solve problems similar to the way a human would Training Educating an AI system by feeding it data. This helps the system to adjust it’s internal parameters Inference When the AI system uses the learned patterns and parameters to make predictions based on scenarios Artificial Intelligence Common Terms (2) Natural Language Processing (NLP) Ability of an AI system to understand and generate text similar to text generated by a human. Small Language Models (SLMs) Can be referred to as a pocket-sized NLP system which can generate and understand text based on a smaller dataset Large Language Models (LLMs) AI systems which use NLP based on very large and growing datasets to understand and generate large amounts of text Ethics in Artificial Intelligence Class discussion How should South African Universities adapt the use of Artificial Intelligence, specifically Large Language Models into the higher education ecosystem? Blockchain Decentralizes the storage of transactions by using a distributed ledger which is shared by computers in a peer to peer association A popular implementation of blockchain technology is virtual currencies such as Bitcoin Bitcoin Though the value of Bitcoin exceeds €10 Billion, no money has been directly inserted into the system Bitcoin can be described as a cryptocurrency As a purely virtual currency, it does not have any capital or other forms of financial backing It could be argued that its perceived value allows people to trade goods and services using Bitcoin as a currency. However, not all people and organizations share this view Components of Blockchain Ledger Blockchain Plaintext Stores the details of The technology transactions (data) which manages the The ledger is distributed ledger distributed (instead Responsible for of traditional encrypting data to transaction systems ensure that the which are transactions are centralized) tamper-proof Ciphertext Copies of the ledger are stored on the associated computers  Centralized vs Distributed No single or centralized version of the information. Transactions are distributed to all computers A single centralized database stores all the transactions. This demonstrates a single version of the information Bitcoin - Discussion Can Bitcoin or other virtual currencies be considered as “real money”? What are the advantages to using a centralized authority such as a bank?  Artificial Intelligence has the ability to mimic human intelligence and has been incorporated into specialized systems to solve complex problems Artificial Intelligence systems are good at processing large amounts of data but can lack in creativity and imagination Artificial Intelligence systems do not adapt well to new situations as they do not contain the data to formulate possible outcomes Blockchain technology offers an alternative to the centralized storage of data such as financial transactions There are ongoing debates about whether virtual currencies can be used for trading goods and services Questions?