This rather ostentatious remark made by Marvin Minsky, co-founder of the world-famous MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, was referring to the fact that researchers have been primarily concerned with small facets of machine intelligence as opposed to looking at the problem as a whole. This article examines the contemporary issues of artificial intelligence (AI) and looks at the current status of the AI field together with potent arguments provided by leading experts to illustrate whether AI is an impossible concept to obtain. Because of the scope and ambition, artificial intelligence defies simple definition. Initially, AI was defined as "the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men." This somewhat meaningless definition shows how AI is still a young discipline -- and similar early definitions have been shaped by the technological and theoretical progress made on the subject.

Numerai is a hedge fund that's using technology to create an unprecedented network effect, and transform the way money is managed. Crowdsourced investment strategies are many and varied, but Numerai crowdsources machine intelligence in a totally unique way by supplying its network of data scientists with encrypted data on which to test their machine learning models, thus removing any bias attached to the application of the algorithms. These models are entered into a monthly tournament and the best ones receive a pay-out. This was previously done using Bitcoin (because it was efficient and more anonymous than PayPal), but more recently Numerai launched its own token, Numeraire (NMR), on Ethereum, the public blockchain which has spawned a multitude of trustless, decentralized applications. The aim of the token was to create more value for Numerai's growing network of scientists, and further align them with the collaborative goals of the project.

Genetically modified babies may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but recent innovations in both gene editing and artificial fertilization technology mean that this idea could become a reality. Scientists focus on gene editing to eliminate certain debilitating hereditary diseases, but the technology could accomplish a lot more. Recently, the team at Superdrug surveyed the public on what they would modify in their future children if they could, and the results are surprising. According to the survey, carried out by Superdrug Online Doctor, prospective parents who viewed baby modification as ethical explained that they would most likely alter their child to make them healthier and more intelligent, followed by increased creativity and attractiveness. When it came to specific physical characteristics, Europeans answered that they would genetically modify their child to be a blonde-haired blued-eyed girl of average height.

So, I compiled all the grand promises that the world's traditional carmakers have made in the past two years or so, and one thing is clear: Either the automotive world is going to undergo a radical transformation around 2020, or these companies have seriously erred in their planning. Volkswagen corporate is engaged in a major initiative they've dubbed "Together-Strategy 2025," which ties together the electrification and smartening of cars. As part of that, they've promised to "bring highly automated driving functions to market as a core competency from 2021." Recently, they introduced an on-demand self-driving car-like thing, which sort of looks like a character in Thomas the Tank Engine: Future Edition. Audi, which is a part of the Volkswagen Group, has been more aggressive.

Samsung's technological reach is formidable, shipping more phones than any other manufacturer. The company boasts nearly 23% of the global smartphone market, and its Gear VR headset, available since late 2015, is already among the most popular virtual reality devices going. But when it comes to voice-activated speakers, a medium that some believe is on the cusp of becoming the next major computing platform, there's reason to question whether Samsung has the wherewithal to keep up. The South Korean technology giant may be developing a new Amazon Echo-like smart speaker powered by its Bixby virtual assistant, reports the Wall Street Journal. But it's arrival would likely come long after category pioneers like Amazon, Google and Apple have either released or announced plans to launch voice-activated gadgets of their own.

With billions of users and hundreds of billions of tweets and posts every year, social media has brought big data to social science. It has also opened an unprecedented opportunity to use artificial intelligence (AI) to glean meaning from the mass of human communications. The University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, for example, uses machine learning and natural language processing to sift through gobs of data to gauge the public's emotional and physical health, including levels of depression and trust, and several personality traits. That's traditionally done with surveys. But social media data is cheap and abundant.

STEP into a taxi in south London later this year and you might not have to think about paying a tip. The UK's first fully public trial of autonomous vehicles will soon be under way. For four weeks, a fleet of driverless shuttles will each ferry up to five passengers and a "safety warden" along a 2-kilometre route in Greenwich. Previous trials there and in the town of Milton Keynes required participants to register in advance. This time the vehicles will pick up anyone wanting a ride.

Over July 4th weekend in 1981, several hundred game nerds gathered at a banquet hall in San Mateo, California. Personal computing was still in its infancy, and the tournament was decidedly low-tech. Each match played out on a rectangular table filled with paper game pieces, and a March Madness-style tournament bracket hung on the wall. The game was called Traveller Trillion Credit Squadron, a role-playing pastime of baroque complexity. Contestants did battle using vast fleets of imaginary warships, each player guided by an equally imaginary trillion-dollar budget and a set of rules that spanned several printed volumes. If they won, they advanced to the next round of war games--until only one fleet remained. Doug Lenat, then a 29-year-old computer science professor at nearby Stanford University, was among the players. But he didn't compete alone. He entered the tournament alongside Eurisko, the artificially intelligent system he built as part of his academic research. Eurisko ran on dozens of machines inside Xerox PARC--the computer research lab just down the road from Stanford that gave rise to the graphical user interface, the laser printer, and so many other technologies that would come to define the future of computing. That year, Lenat taught Eurisko to play Traveller. Doug Lenat says his common-sense engine is a new dawn for AI. The rest of the tech world doesn't really agree with him.