Are connectionist models and symbolic models competing or Essay

Are connectionist models and symbolic models competing or complementary appraoaches to artificial intelligence - Essay Example Both these approaches have their supporters who have used them to show the various benefits which can be derived from taking different viewpoint to AI (Minsky, 1991). At the same time, there are those who have said that the approaches are complimentary and do not compete with each other. To justify these statements it is necessary to take a look at each approach to see how it works. The symbolic approach is based on the creation of AI models that work with symbol manipulation. Computation is based on the fact that a symbol or a group of symbols can be arranged in a manner to represent information. Once the order or position of symbols is changed, the information can also be updated to reflect the changing environment. It must be noted that in this approach a symbol can represent any type or nature of information and the symbols can be modified if required (Bader & Hitzler, 2005). Thus a symbol here represents an idea which has certain basic premises but which can be modified by the machine based on experience or intelligent action. This process of symbol manipulation can be very successful if the AI process is being applied to well-structured problems. That means if the symbols are predefined for the AI system, it can modify the associated parameters based on its own experience and manipulation of the symbols (Bader & Hitzler, 2005). This method seeks to replicate the higher order thinking processes of the human mind which has the same ability to modify and learn from experiences as they are collected in a person’s memory. However, this approach has certain failings as well since it is difficult to grasp commonsense reality with this approach. On the other hand, the connectionist models for AI are based on the idea of using a large number of relatively simple units which can handle extremely difficult and

I Need Time Management Advice Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

I Need Time Management Advice - Research Paper Example The steady decline is attributed to increased efficiency due to high level of technology, student evaluations methods and poor study habit among students. The students join colleges after they have achieved very good grades and above average performances leading to very high expectations but this are not to be realized in the long run because they fail to study immediately they set their feet on campus. The decline in the time of study affects all students equally irrespective of their race, sex, age, school size or their past performance. This is not limited to the type of school or the competency of the lecturers but the trend of the decline is widespread all over according to the research by the two economic professors which has elicited a number of varied reactions with some people doubting its accuracy. However the bottom line is that the declining trends is enormous and requires to be addressed urgently. Many reasons attributed to the trend include internet use, technological changes and change in campus demographic patterns, a claim that the two professors are quick to refute and instead they say that lack of challenge between both students and the lectures is the main contributing factor. There is a general decline in the workload that is given to students and as result they have a lot of free time to indulge in other activities other than personal studies and lack o self motivation to study. A research by Cooperative Institutional Research Program, or CIRP indicates that students develop poor study habits before they get to campus after which the trend worsens. Some have argued that the changing social patterns are responsible for the decline in the study time since some students are usually engaged in more than one activity at the time they are in campus as opposed to the early years where students devoted all their time to studies while in campus. It is also argued that technological advancements have