Artificial Intelligence (AI)
What is AI?
Field of computer science building systems that perform tasks requiring human intelligence: reasoning, learning, perception, language, decision‑making.
Why is AI growing now?
Explosion of computing power; powerful GPUs/TPUs and cloud; breakthroughs in deep learning/transformers; heavy industry investment and demand.
Current challenges
Generalization beyond narrow training data; explainability (black‑box decisions); ethics and bias risks.
Robotics application sectors
Manufacturing & logistics (speed, precision, 24/7); healthcare (surgery, rehab, patient support); agriculture (planting, harvesting, monitoring).
AGI & autonomous robotics
Convergence not imminent; AGI is still way too early. Fully autonomous robots face safety, perception, and reasoning hurdles; potential impacts are economy, labor, security.
Cloud Computing
What is cloud computing?
On‑demand access to shared computing resources over the internet.
Is it a new technology?
No. It builds on virtualization and distributed systems.
Major service models
IaaS (infrastructure), PaaS (platform), SaaS (software).
Enabling real‑world domains
Healthcare (analytics), Finance (Quantative / Machine Learning), Media & Streaming (CDN/transcoding), Education (e‑learning), IoT/Smart Cities (ingest + processing).
Economic / business model
Utility‑style pricing, shift from CapEx to OpEx, multi‑tenancy economies of scale, tiered/reserved/spot options.
Theory of Computation
Decision Problems
A yes/no question depending on input data.
Decidability
There exists an algorithm that always gives the correct answer.
Class P
Problems solvable in polynomial time by a deterministic algorithm.
Class NP
Problems whose solutions can be verified in polynomial time.
P vs NP
Is every quickly verifiable problem also quickly solvable?
Prize
Clay Millennium Prize: $1,000,000 for resolving P vs NP.
Cybersecurity • Qatar Incidents
Two notable incidents — QNB breach and QNA hack.
Qatar National Bank Data Breach (2016)
Compromised Data: ~1.4 GB leaked, 15,460 files incl. account numbers, passwords, PINs, PCI.
Attack Method: SQL injection vulnerability led to mass data extraction.
Impacted: QNB customers, Al Thani family, Al Jazeera staff, officials.
Investigation: Internal/external teams confirmed authenticity; risk mitigated with OTPs.
Qatar News Agency Hack (2017)
Compromised Data: False statements posted on QNA website and Twitter.
Attack Method: Vulnerability in CMS allowed control over content/social.
Impacted: Diplomatic relations; regional crisis and severed ties.
Investigation: Collaboration with FBI/UK; involvement of two foreign countries.
Programming Languages
From Punch Cards to Languages
Punch cards were slow, fragile, and hard to debug. Languages enabled clarity, reuse, and practicality.
Why So Many Languages?
Different problems need different tools — speed, portability, readability, safety.
Drawbacks Example
JavaScript inconsistencies across browsers; stronger standardization would help.
Creating a New Language
Define purpose, design syntax/types, choose compiled vs interpreted; aim for power + approachability.
Randy Pausch • Time Management
About the Lecture
Randy Pausch, CMU professor, became widely known for his inspiring “Last Lecture” and practical talks on time management.
Five Takeaways
Protect high-focus hours; single-task; call before lunch/day-end; log hours; beat procrastination by facing fears.