Artificial Intelligence

We call ourselves Homo Sapiens - man the wise - because our mental capacities
are so important to us. For thousands of years, we have tried to under
stand how we think; that is, how a mere handful of stuff can perceive,
understand, predict, and manipulate a worldd far larger and more complicated
than itself. The field of artificial intelligence, or A1, goes further
still: it attempts not just to understand but also to build intelligent
entities.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the current sciences. Work
started in earnest soon agter World War II, and the name itself was 
coined in 1956. Along with molecular biology, AI is reguarly cited as
the "field I would most like to be in" by scientists in other disciplines. A
student in physics might reasonably feel that all the good ideas have already
been taken by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and the rest.
AI, on the other hand, still has openings for several full-time
Einsteins. AI currently encompasses a huge variety of subfields, ranging
from general-purpose areas, such as learning and perception to such 
specific tasks as playing chess, proving mathematical theorems, writing
poetry, and diagnosing diseases. AI systematizes and automates intellectual
tasks and is therefore potentially relevant to any sphere of human intellectual
activity. In this sense, it is truly a universal field.