Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines or software, as opposed to the intelligence of humans or animals. It is a field of study in computer science that develops and studies intelligent machines. AI technology is widely used throughout industry, government, and science. Some high-profile applications are advanced web search engines, recommendation systems, understanding human speech, self-driving cars, generative or creative tools, and competing at the highest level in strategic games.
AI systems work by ingesting large amounts of labeled training data, analyzing the data for correlations and patterns, and using these patterns to make predictions about future states. Specific applications of AI include expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition, and machine vision. AI requires a foundation of specialized hardware and software for writing and training machine learning algorithms. No single programming language is synonymous with AI, but Python, R, Java, C++, and Julia have features popular with AI developers.
Artificial intelligence was founded as an academic discipline in 1956. The field went through multiple cycles of optimism followed by disappointment and loss of funding, but after 2012, when deep learning surpassed all previous AI, it has become a popular field of study and investment.
