Appendix A — Exercise Solutions

These are suggested answers to the exercises in each chapter. Many exercises ask you to work with your own experience, so your answer may look different from the one here and still be correct. Try each exercise before you read its answer.

Chapter 1

Exercise 1.1

Answers will vary with the decision you chose. A good answer has a row for each of the seven stages, and it notices that perception was the simplest part. For example, if you decided whether to take an umbrella, you perceived clouds, but you also drew on what you remembered about the forecast, how far you had to walk, and what happened the last time you got caught in the rain. None of that was in the clouds themselves.

Exercise 1.2

A good explanation makes this point: the words we use to describe and judge AI, such as "smart," "reasons," "creative," and "understands," were borrowed from people. Unless we know what those words mean for a person, we can't tell whether they fit a machine. Human intelligence is therefore the baseline for comparison.

The seven stages, in order, are perceive, interpret, remember, reason, decide, act, and learn. The cycle then repeats, shaped by what was learned.