Fuzzy systems are a type of Artificial Intelligence that strive to conquer the complexities of human logic that isn’t always accurate or exact. A fuzzy system or Fuzzy logic tries to add meaning to words like sometimes and a little or a lot. These terms can then be used in programming or in other AI systems.

“Fuzzy logic is widely used in machine control. The term “fuzzy” refers to the fact that the logic involved can deal with concepts that cannot be expressed as the “true” or “false” but rather as “partially true”. Although alternative approaches such as genetic algorithms and neural networks can perform just as well as fuzzy logic in many cases, fuzzy logic has the advantage that the solution to the problem can be cast in terms that human operators can understand, so that their experience can be used in the design of the controller. This makes it easier to mechanize tasks that are already successfully performed by humans” (Fuzzy Control System, n.d.)

We will be using a Fuzzy Logic System to describe the condition of the plants to the user as well as training our AI.

References:

Fuzzy Control System. (n.d.). Retrieved from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_control_system

According to Dictionary.com (2018) ‘Artificial Intelligence’ is “the capacity of a computer to perform operations analogous to learning and decision making in humans, as by an expert system, a program for CAD or CAM, or a program for the perception and recognition of shapes in computer vision systems.” In summary, a software that can learn in one way or another.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been quickly evolving and changing, getting more advanced in recent time. We started with rule-based AI where a set of rules are given for the machine to follow that can be refined and added to. The problem is the world is a complicated place. Next came Learning AI where the AI took these rules and decided on the best outcomes and refined them. Now we are moving to Neural Networks that are almost like a ‘black box’. They work similar to a brain in which they have neurons and process data based on the connections of these neurons. This however, makes it impossible to look at the process it is using and refine it manually. (Barnatt, 2017)

AI can be split into 3 parts in most cases. The learning algorithm, Test data to learn off, and some sort of hardware. In a lot of cases AI is run off a normal computers processor which is what we are using, however, specialized hardware also exists. Test data can either be given to teach the AI then the AI used, and/or The AI can learn while it is in use from the data it is given and outcomes. We are using the latter.  (Gerven & Bohte, 2018)

Further Reading:

Types of AI: 
https://simplicable.com/new/types-of-artificial-intelligence
https://futurism.com/images/types-of-ai-from-reactive-to-self-aware-infographic/

AI Hardware:
https://cloud.google.com/tpu/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/machine-learning-studio/

AI Components:
http://www.explainingcomputers.com/ai.html

References:

Dictionary.com. (2018, May 06). artificial intelligence. Retrieved from Dictionary: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/automation

Barnatt, C. (2017). DIGITAL GENESIS - The Future of Computing, Robots and AI. explainingcomputers.com.

Gerven, M. V., & Bohte, S. (2018). Artificial Neural Networks as Models of Neural Information Processing. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, 5-30.

I have teamed up with Shalom to work on something that interests us both; It was almost too perfect. I wanted to work on a system that would automate looking after a plant and Shalom wants to build a system to assist in looking after a plant using AI and Fuzzy systems. Basically, every term used in that last sentence could have its own entire blog so I will do some separate posts on each concept.

Our current concept is a device to add to your indoor plants that will send notifications to your phone at the best times, to water the plant or do something to look after it. The notifications will be calculated based on the plant’s needs and then by using AI learning it will also calculate the time that you are most likely free to do the task and most want to do it.