Harry Katzan Jr.
This book covers the Principles of Artifi cial Intelligence. It is both a text book and a referencebook. It is one of many books on the subject of artifi cial intelligernce. There are more than400 of them. It is the only one that covers principles that is intended to refl ect on how togo about doing AI for productive purposes. It also covers about what AI is already, but itis more than that. It answers the question 'Can a machine think?' and most people arequite tired of that question. In fact, people are now more interested in how to do whatwe want to do.In fact, AI is a inportant subject in our lives and here are two outstanding books that atuneto that assertion: The Singularity is Nearer (2024) by Ray Kurzweil; Artifi cial Intelligence: AModern Approach (1995) by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig; The writers are exceedinglyintelligent, and the books are useful but not that easy to read. University research isequally noteworthy. But what about the strategy of adopting AI for the modern operationalenvironment? How do you know what to do and how to do it.Do you have to be a scientist or a mathematician to do the job? Absolutely not. Do youneed to be a manager, a major CEO, or even the President of a coiuntry. Probably yes. Butyou need to have the information to do the job. This book gives you what you should doto implement AI in the organization and precisely what you need to know in order to do it.When doing the job of implementing, should you be knowledgeable about precisly whathas to be done? Of course. Do you personally have to do it? Not at all. Do you needinformation on related subjects, of course again. Do you have to read this book serially? Ofcourse not; it is too detailed. But when you fi nally get it done properly, you do deserve to bea DAI, that is a Doctor of Artifi cial Intelligence. That is proposed to be the case in the future.Will this be happy reading? On some topics, yes. Other sections, not so much. There are alot of pages because the environment of AI is large and complicated. Many of the subjectscovered in this book will be extremely useful in other areas of business and the organizaton.Artifi cial Intelligence is an extremely volatile subject. It is being adjusted daily, and it isalmost impossible to fi gure out what is actually going on. The book will be revised andprobably copied in content with an air of improvement. That is the way the world operates.Have a useful and interesting time reading the book. It will be worth the effort.One more thing. The book is for fi nding out about AI and associated subjects. Who knowswhatthe professional and everyday people want to know. The book is for everyone.Equally important is the fact that the book is specifi cally designed for an online collegecourse on AI and supports that assertion by including a substantional choice of subjects forthe online professor. For example, the last section on managing uncertainly is very stronglyAI based on the Theory of Evidence through the information on Dempster Shafer Theory.The author has been involved with AI since a university 3-week seminar in 1963 for a largecorporation and taught one of the fi rst graduate-level university courses on AI in 1978. Hehas been the CEO of Artifi cial Intelligence Consulting (AICON), a university professor, andan international AI consultant, after working for Boeing, Oak Ridge National Lab, and IBM.He has written a few books and a few more peer reviewed papers.
