Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is both the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science which aims to create it.
Major AI textbooks define artificial intelligence as "the study and design of intelligent agents,"[1] where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximize its chances of success.[2] John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956,[3] defines it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines."[4]
Among the traits that researchers hope machines will exhibit are reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects.[5] General intelligence (or "strong AI") has not yet been achieved and is a long-term goal of some AI research.[6]
AI research uses tools and insights from many fields, including computer science, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, cognitive science, linguistics, ontology, operations research, economics, control theory, probability, optimization and logic.[7] AI research also overlaps with tasks such as robotics, control systems, scheduling, data mining, logistics, speech recognition, facial recognition and many others.[8]
Other names for the field have been proposed, such as computational intelligence,[9] synthetic intelligence,[9] intelligent systems,[10] or computational rationality.[11] These alternative names are sometimes used to set oneself apart from the part of AI dealing with symbols (considered outdated by many, see GOFAI) which is often associated with the term “AI” itself.
Perspectives on AI
AI in myth, fiction and speculation
Humanity has imagined in great detail the implications of thinking machines or artificial beings. They appear in Greek myths, such as Talos of Crete, the golden robots of Hephaestus and Pygmalion's Galatea.[12] The earliest known humanoid robots (or automatons) were sacred statues worshipped in Egypt and Greece, believed to have been endowed with genuine consciousness by craftsman.[13] In the sixteenth century, the alchemist Paracelsus claimed to have created artificial beings.[14] Realistic clockwork imitations of human beings have been built by people such as Yan Shi,[15] Hero of Alexandria,[16] Al-Jazari[17] and Wolfgang von Kempelen.[18]
In modern fiction, beginning with Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein, writers have explored the ethical issues presented by thinking machines.[19] If a machine can be created that has intelligence, can it also feel? If it can feel, does it have the same rights as a human being? This is a key issue in Frankenstein as well as in modern science fiction: for example, the film Artificial Intelligence: A.I. considers a machine in the form of a small boy which has been given the ability to feel human emotions, including, tragically, the capacity to suffer. This issue is also being considered by futurists, such as California's Institute for the Future under the name "robot rights",[20] although many critics believe that the discussion is premature.[21][22]
Science fiction writers and futurists have also speculated on the technology's potential impact on humanity. In fiction, AI has appeared as a servant (R2D2 in Star Wars), a comrade (Lt. Commander Data in Star Trek), an extension to human abilities (Ghost in the Shell), a conqueror (The Matrix), a dictator (With Folded Hands) and an exterminator (Terminator, Battlestar Galactica). Some realistic potential consequences of AI are decreased human labor demand,[23] the enhancement of human ability or experience,[24] and a need for redefinition of human identity and basic values.[25]
Futurists estimate the capabilities of machines using Moore's Law, which measures the relentless exponential improvement in digital technology with uncanny accuracy. Ray Kurzweil has calculated that desktop computers will have the same processing power as human brains by the year 2029, and that by 2045 artificial intelligence will reach a point where it is able to improve itself at a rate that far exceeds anything conceivable in the past, a scenario that science fiction writer Vernor Vinge named the "technological singularity".[26]
"Artificial intelligence is the next stage in evolution," Edward Fredkin said in the 1980s,[27] expressing an idea first proposed by Samuel Butler's Darwin Among the Machines (1863), and expanded upon by George Dyson in his book of the same name (1998). Several futurists and science fiction writers have predicted that human beings and machines will merge in the future into cyborgs that are more capable and powerful than either. This idea, called transhumanism, has roots in Aldous Huxley and Robert Ettinger, is now associated with robot designer Hans Moravec, cyberneticist Kevin Warwick and Ray Kurzweil.[26] Transhumanism has been illustrated in fiction as well, for example on the manga Ghost in the Shell
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