AI Definitions

Artificial Intelligence

Humankind has given itself the scientific name homo sapiens--man the wise--because our mental capacities are so important to our everyday lives and our sense of self. 

The field of artificial intelligence, or AI, attempts to understand intelligent entities. Thus, one reason to study it is to learn more about ourselves. But unlike philosophy and psychology, which are also concerned with intelligence, AI strives to build intelligent entities as well as understand them.

Another reason to study AI is that these constructed intelligent entities are interesting and useful in their own right. AI has produced many significant and impressive products even at this early stage in its development. Although no one can predict the future in detail, it is clear that computers with human-level intelligence (or better) would have a huge impact on our everyday lives and on the future course of civilization.

What is AI?

We have now explained why AI is exciting, but we have not said what it is. We could just say, ``Well, it has to do with smart programs, so let's get on and write some.'' But the history of science shows that it is helpful to aim at the right goals. Early alchemists, looking for a potion for eternal life and a method to turn lead into gold, were probably off on the wrong foot. 

Only when the aim changed, to that of finding explicit theories that gave accurate predictions of the terrestrial world, in the same way, that early astronomy predicted the apparent motions of the stars and planets, could the scientific method emerge and productive science takes place. 

Definitions of artificial intelligence according to eight recent textbooks are shown in the table below. These definitions vary along two main dimensions. The ones on top are concerned with thought processes and reasoning, whereas the ones on the bottom address behaviour. Also, the definitions on the left measure success in terms of human performance, whereas the ones on the right measure against an ideal concept of intelligence, which we will call rationality. A system is rational if it does the right thing.