Artificial Intelligence is the ability of a computer to "think" and act on it's own. The term Artificial intelligence was first coined in 1950, in London England by Alan Turing. A landmark paper by Alan Turing argued for the possibility of building intelligent computing systems. The paper purposed what is referred to now as the "Turing Test". This test compared the intellectual capabilities of humans and A.I. systems. In the Turing Test, a judge used a Teletype to communicate with two players in other rooms: a person and a computer. The judge would know the players only by anonymous labels, such as "player A" and "player B". The judge would then ask the players questions; and based on their responses would determine which player was a computer. The goal of A.I. is to pass the Turing test, but not imitate human behavior.
So, what are some examples of A.I.? The most famous use of A.I. was when in 1997, Reigning chess champion Garry Kasparov played a chess match against Deep Blue, a super computer developed by IBM. Kasparov won the first match and lost the rematch. A more recent example of A.I. is the Sony Aibo (which is companion in Japanese), a robotic dog. Aibo is able to learn its owners voice and obey commands given to it. It can also recognize colors, shapes, and boundaries of its environment. Also, here are currently leagues where robots compete in soccer matches. There are plans that by the year 2050, a team of robots will be able to compete against human opponents in what is called the Robocup.
What will A.I. be used for in the future? Heuristic Classification is used to describe a computer program that can modify itself in response to the user. For example advising whether to accept a proposed credit card purchase. Heuristic Classification can also inform the consumer about the item they are buying and about the establishment from which he is buying it (e.g., about whether there have been previous credit card frauds at this establishment).
