Artificial Intelligence
Introduction to AI, its applications and future: the study of machines that perform tasks linked to human intelligence.
Contents
Artificial intelligence is the field of computer science concerned with building systems that perform tasks associated with human intelligence, such as reasoning, learning and understanding language.
History
The term was introduced for a 1956 workshop at Dartmouth College. Periods of optimism alternated with funding droughts known as AI winters.
Machine learning
Most modern systems learn patterns from data rather than following hand-written rules. Deep learning uses neural networks with many layers.
Concerns
Researchers and governments are working on questions of safety, bias, privacy and the effect of automation on work.
Recent progress
Large neural networks trained on text and images now write, translate and summarise, and their limits remain an active field of research.