Ultra-flat optics for broadband thermal imaging

Long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) imaging holds critical significance across many applications, from consumer electronics to defense and national security. It finds applications in night vision, remote sensing, and long-range ...

Artificial intelligence brings a virtual fly to life

By infusing a virtual fruit fly with artificial intelligence, Janelia and Google DeepMind, scientists have created a computerized insect that can walk and fly just like the real thing.

Universities at a crossroads with AI, says study

Universities should be having an active conversation with their students and staff about how to capitalize on the benefits and minimize the drawbacks of using AI tools, such as ChatGPT, according to a paper from the University ...

Citizen astronomers and AI discover 30,000 ring galaxies

Building on the synergy between citizen astronomer classifications and AI, astronomers have discovered approximately 400,000 spiral galaxies and 30,000 ring galaxies in data from the Subaru Telescope. This is the first example ...

New ceramics promise hotter gas turbines that produce more power

Skoltech researchers have identified promising ceramic materials for metal coatings that would boost gas turbine efficiency. If further experimental tests prove successful, the coatings will enable power plants to produce ...

What does the American public really think of AI?

In 2021, two Stony Brook University researchers—Jason Jones, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, and Steven Skiena, Ph.D., Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Computer Science—began ...

Using AI to develop early warning systems for flooding

Susanne Nielsen realizes that it is probably only a matter of time before her parents' summer house at Slettestrand in North Jutland is affected by flooding. Because under the house, which is just 400 meters from the bay ...

page 1 from 40

Artificial intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science which aims to create it. Major AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents," where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximize its chances of success. John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956, defines it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines."

The field was founded on the claim that a central property of human beings, intelligence—the sapience of Homo sapiens—can be so precisely described that it can be simulated by a machine. This raises philosophical issues about the nature of the mind and limits of scientific hubris, issues which have been addressed by myth, fiction and philosophy since antiquity. Artificial intelligence has been the subject of breathtaking optimism, has suffered stunning setbacks and, today, has become an essential part of the technology industry, providing the heavy lifting for many of the most difficult problems in computer science.

AI research is highly technical and specialized, so much so that some critics decry the "fragmentation" of the field. Subfields of AI are organized around particular problems, the application of particular tools and around longstanding theoretical differences of opinion. The central problems of AI include such traits as reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. General intelligence (or "strong AI") is still a long-term goal of (some) research, while many researchers no longer believe that this is possible.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA