Artificial intelligence

Machine created intelligence that can learn, anticipate, and adapt. 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 that maximize its chances of success. John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956, defines it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines." AI is the computer modeling and software simulation of human intelligence and other mental processes. Such intelligence would include holding a conversation, problem solving, thought processing, object manipulation, playing chess, writing stories, translating, speech recognition, pattern recognition (vision), interactivity, and learning. "Expert Systems" and "Decision-Support Systems" are the practical application of AI research. They are used for solving problems and making decisions in a particular domain. Combination of all these technological features of intelligence is called the "top-down" approach to AI, whereas the "bottom up" approach is the endowment of "Artificial Life" with the powers of replication, adaptation, learning and self - evolution criticized. It seems that certain thresholds or previous limits to the creation of artificial intelligence are likely to be breached by advances in quantum computing, nanotechnology and/or molecular electronics. These advances combine immense increases in processing power with the replication and manipulation of molecules and atoms, and add carbon (organic molecules) to the traditional silicon of microcircuits. Such systems are used in “economics, medicine, engineering and the military, as well as being built into many common home computer software applications, traditional strategy games like computer chess and other video games.”