What Do People Say About `Artificial Intelligence`?

According to John McCarthy, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is '…the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable'.

IBM research suggests that, 'AI is inherently a multi-disciplinary field. Although it is most commonly viewed as a subfield of computer science, and draws upon work in algorithms, databases, and theoretical computer science, AI also has close connections to the neurosciences, cognitive science and cognitive psychology, mathematical logic, and engineering'.

Hence, AI is the capacity of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot device to perform tasks commonly associated with the higher intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience. The term is also frequently applied to that branch of computer science concerned with the development of systems endowed with such capabilities (James Hendler, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; University of Maryland).