katherina





Artificial intelligence


Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines or software, and is also a branch of computer science that studies and develops intelligent machinesand software. Major AI researchers and textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents",where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takesactions that maximize its chances of success. John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1955,[3] defines it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines".

AI research is highly technicaland specialised, deeply divided into subfields that often fail to communicate with each other. Some of the division is due to social and cultural factors: subfields have grown up around particularinstitutions and the work of individual researchers. AI research is also divided by several technical issues. There are subfields which are focused on the solution of specific problems, on one of severalpossible approaches, on the use of widely differing toolsand towards the accomplishment of particular applications.

The central problems (or goals) of AI research include reasoning, knowledge,planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. General intelligence (or "strong AI") is still among the field's long term goals. Currently popular approachesinclude statistical methods, computational intelligence and traditional symbolic AI. There are an enormous number of tools used in AI, including versions of search and mathematical optimization,logic, methods based on probability and economics, and many others.

The field was founded on the claim that a central property of humans, intelligence—the sapience of Homo sapiens—can be so preciselydescribed that it can be simulated by a machine.This raises philosophical issues about the nature of the mind and the ethics of creating artificial beings, issues which have been addressed by...