The Biggest Misconceptions about Artificial Intelligence

Apoorv Saxena, lead product manager at Google and co-founder of the AI Frontiers conference that will be held in Santa Clara, Calif., from November 3-5, speaks with Knowledge@Wharton about why interest in artificial intelligence is growing, what is likely to happen in the near future and which challenges will take longer to overcome. An edited transcript of the conversation follows. Knowledge@Wharton: Interest in artificial intelligence has picked up dramatically in recent times. What is driving this hype? What are some of the biggest prevailing misconceptions about AI and how would you separate the hype from reality? Apoorv Saxena: There are multiple factors driving strong interest in AI recently. First is significant gains in dealing with long-standing problems in AI.