MI-7-Introduction.pdf

Among the many properties ascribed to the magical number seven is that of marking out the significant epochs of a human life-span -- seven years from birth to departure from the kindergarten, another seven to puberty, another seven to majority. The occasion of the Seventh International Machine Intelligence Workshop is perhaps an appropriate moment to take stock. Views differ as to exactly which of the successive thresholds is the one on which machine intelligence research is now poised. But there is no mistaking the sense of transition, felt both by its practitioners, who claim that their field is at last attaining maturity, and in a rather different way by its interested Spectators. The latter rightly point out that if maturation brings opportunity and new powers it also brings the obligation to earn a living.