Source : WordNet®

artificial intelligence
     n : the branch of computer science that deal with writing
         computer programs that can solve problems creatively;
         "workers in AI hope to imitate or duplicate intelligence
         in computers and robots" [syn: {AI}]

Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

artificial intelligence
     
         (AI) The subfield of computer
        science concerned with the concepts and methods of {symbolic
        inference} by computer and symbolic {knowledge representation}
        for use in making inferences.  AI can be seen as an attempt to
        model aspects of human thought on computers.  It is also
        sometimes defined as trying to solve by computer any problem
        that a human can solve faster.  The term was coined by
        Stanford Professor {John McCarthy}, a leading AI researcher.
     
        Examples of AI problems are {computer vision} (building a
        system that can understand images as well as a human) and
        {natural language processing} (building a system that can
        understand and speak a human language as well as a human).
        These may appear to be modular, but all attempts so far (1993)
        to solve them have foundered on the amount of context
        information and "intelligence" they seem to require.
     
        The term is often used as a selling point, e.g. to describe
        programming that drives the behaviour of computer characters
        in a game.  This is often no more intelligent than "Kill any
        humans you see; keep walking; avoid solid objects; duck if a
        human with a gun can see you".
     
        See also {AI-complete}, {neats vs. scruffies}, {neural
        network}, {genetic programming}, {fuzzy computing},
        {artificial life}.
     
        {ACM SIGART (http://sigart.acm.org/)}.  {U Cal Davis
        (http://phobos.cs.ucdavis.edu:8001)}.  {CMU Artificial
        Intelligence Repository
        (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/Groups/AI/html/repository.html)}.
     
        (2002-01-19)