Artificial Intelligence (AI) Faculty Guide

Computer-based systems are being used more increasingly in education, work, and in our personal lives. This guide brings together information about how artificial intelligence is evolving and how you can use it successfully.

Artificial Intelligence can be defined as the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.

There are four main types:

1. Reactive machine - AI that has no memory and are task specific; machine learning models
2. Limited memory - AI that imitates how our brains' neurons work together, so that it is getting smarter as it receives more data
3. Theory of mind - if developed, AI could have the potential to understand the world and how other entities have thoughts and emotions; does not exist yet
4. Self-awareness - if developed, AI would have a sense of self or a conscious understanding of their existence; does not exist yet 

(https://www.coursera.org/articles/types-of-ai)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of a machine to perform a task that would normally require human intelligence. Chat bots that answer questions use AI, as does MS Word or Grammarly.

A chatbot is software designed to imitate human interaction through text or voice commands. Many companies use chatbots on their websites to answer questions without human interaction.

Generative AI creates content such as text, pictures, video and code. This AI system is trained by finding patterns in large amounts of data.

A hallucination is when AI gives false or incorrect information as a result.

Intelligence is the ability to learn and use knowledge to perform tasks and achieve goals within a given context. Humans and animals have intelligence.

Large language models (LLMs) are trained using large amounts of data and can understand and generate content in natural language. They can translate English text into other languages, summarize text, generate text, and answer questions.

Machine learning is when computer systems are developed to use algorithms and statistical models to learn and adapt without explicit instructions.

Natural language processing is AI software that enables computers to understand spoken and written human language.

A prompt is the text (instructions) a user enters into an AI system to tell it what results the user wants. Prompts may be a phrase, or multiple paragraphs.