hi! i''m relatively new to computer AI, and i''d be very grateful if someone could direct me to a few tutorials concerning neural networks, and their learning methods... thanx in advance follow the yellow brick road

quote: Original post by The Wizard Of Oz
i''m relatively new to computer AI, and i''d be very grateful if someone could direct me to a few tutorials concerning neural networks, and their learning methods...

The FAQ for comp.ai.neural-nets on Usenet is a good start. Google (www.google.com) is another good resource- try using things like ''tutorial'' or ''introduction'' with ''neural network''.

-Predictor

If I may ask a question... when you say you are new to AI, do you mean new to ALL sorts of AI? If so, ANNs may not be the place to start really unless you have something specific that REALLY caters to ANNs (and at this time, not a lot of things do). If you are planning on doing usable AI for games, you may want to start with some of the more rudimentary and useful forms of AI like Finite State Machines, Rule-Based Systems, etc.

Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer
Intrinsic Algorithm - "Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

well...the thing i''d really like to dig into are ANN ''cause i''m working on a kids'' type of game...it should have the capability of learning things ( which i think will make the kids go like...wow, mom, look i''m a teacher ), and to be able to teach back if the kids make some mistake in e.g. mathematics or physics...it would be like an adittion to grade school books, but more fun...it would also have a hint system which could predict the right way for the kid to continue on his task...that''s why i need ANN references...

The task you have set yourself is not one that you are likely to be able to achieve by yourself. I worked for some time as part of a research team on an automated tutoring system designed just to educate young children about decimals and to analyse their misconceptions and subsequently choose learning strategies to dispel them. I did a lot of the research on the analysis of the misconceptions and the building of the model of the user''s beliefs. I can tell you now that this is NOT an easy task and requires very advanced AI techniques. Artificial neural networks are most definitely NOT suited to the task of automated tutoring.

There are, in fact, only a few such intelligent tutoring systems under development around the world and the successful 1 or 2 in this handful are built on very complicated AI structures; required thousands of hours development time and involved whole teams of experts in a variety of fields.

I''m not trying to discourage you from AI, but I do think you should be forewarned that what you are trying to achieve is probably well beyond your abilities... and those of most people.

Perhaps you should try something simpler?

Cheers,

Timkin

quote: Original post by The Wizard Of Oz
well...the thing i''d really like to dig into are ANN ''cause i''m working on a kids'' type of game...it should have the capability of learning things ( which i think will make the kids go like...wow, mom, look i''m a teacher ), and to be able to teach back if the kids make some mistake in e.g. mathematics or physics...it would be like an adittion to grade school books, but more fun...it would also have a hint system which could predict the right way for the kid to continue on his task...that''s why i need ANN references...

You might consider learning systems other than neural networks (decision tree or rule induction, discriminant analysis, regression, etc.)- different learning algorithms offer different strengths and weaknesses. See this paper for an overview:

http://will.dwinnell.com/will/Modeling%20Methodology%203%20-%20Algorithm%20Selection.DOC

You might consider other adaptive computing techniques, too, such as unsupervised learning, depending precisely what you want to do. It will probably help to clearly define what exactly you want the computer to "learn" and subsequently "teach ", when you say "it should have the capability of learning things ..., and to be able to teach back if the kids make some mistake ".

maybe i did byte more than i can chew ( think it''s the right expression )
i''ll look into some other AI methods first...
thanks