Intelligence is the ability to learn and to deal with new situations. When a computer or a robot solves a problem or uses language, it may seem to be intelligent. However, this type of intelligence is different from human intelligence. It is called artificial intelligence, or AI.
For more than 50 years scientists have been trying to make a machine with artificial intelligence that is close to human intelligence. So far they have not been successful. One reason is that intelligence involves so many ways of making decisions and doing tasks.
Scientists have figured out how to make computers do some of these things but not others. Part of AI is trying to figure out what human intelligence is. Then scientists can try to copy it. The final goal of AI is to create computers that can “think” as humans do.
Artificial intelligence comes from sets of instructions that people write. These instructions are called programs. Computers use programs to analyze, or study, large amounts of information quickly. Then they pick answers or actions from among many choices. Computer programs can be used for playing games, making medical decisions, translating languages, and even designing computers.
But analyzing information is not the same as understanding a problem as humans do. Computers can only use logic, or the relationships among facts, to figure out problems. Humans use many skills besides logic when making decisions. They use such things as imagination, awareness, emotion, and values. No one knows yet whether these abilities can be programmed into a computer.
The study of AI began with a paper written in 1950 by a British mathematician named Alan Turing. Turing made up a test to decide if a computer is intelligent. A human judge asks questions using a computer. The questions go to a person hidden from view and to a computer at the same time. The person and the computer both answer the questions. The judge then tries to tell which answers came from the computer and which came from the person. If the judge cannot tell them apart, the computer is intelligent. So far no computer has come close to passing the test. This test is now known as the Turing test.
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