Thursday, August 9, 2007

Artificial Intelligence


The term Artificial Intelligence (AI) was first used by John McCarthy who used it to mean "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines".[1] It can also refer to intelligence as exhibited by an artificial (man-made, non-natural, manufactured) entity. While AI is the generally accepted term, others, including both Computational intelligence and Synthetic intelligence, have been proposed as potentially being "more accurate".[2] The terms strong and weak AI can be used to narrow the definition for classifying such systems. AI is studied in overlapping fields of computer science, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and engineering, dealing with intelligent behavior, learning, and adaptation and usually developed using customized machines or computers.

Research in AI is concerned with producing machines to automate tasks requiring intelligent behavior. Examples include control, planning and scheduling, the ability to answer diagnostic and consumer questions, handwriting, natural language, speech, and facial recognition. As such, the study of AI has also become an engineering discipline, focused on providing solutions to real life problems, knowledge mining, software applications, and strategy games like computer chess and other video games. One of the biggest difficulties with AI is that of "comprehension". Many devices have been created that can do amazing things, but critics of AI claim that no actual comprehension by the AI machine has taken place.

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