NASA's Advanced Automation for Space Missions: Chapter 1

Many of the concepts and technologies considered in this study for possible use in future space missions are elements of a diverse field of research known as "artificial intelligence" or simply AI. The term has no universally accepted definition or list of component subdisciplines, but is commonly understood to refer to the study of thinking and perceiving as general information processing functions - the science of intelligence. Although, in the words of one researcher, "It is completely unimportant to the theory of AI who is doing the thinking, man or computer" (Nilsson, 1974), the historical development of the field has followed largely an empirical and engineering approach. In the past few decades, computer systems have been programmed to prove theorems, diagnose diseases, assemble mechanical equipment using a robot hand, play games such as chess and backgammon, solve differential equations, analyze the structure of complex organic molecules from mass-spectrogram data, pilot vehicles across terrain of limited complexity, analyze electronic circuits, understand simple human speech and natural language text, and even write computer programs according to formal specifications - all of which are analogous to human mental activities usually said to require some measure of "intelligence." If a general theory of intelligence eventually emerges from the AI field, it could help guide the design of intelligent machines as well as illuminate various aspects of rational behavior as it occurs in humans and other animals.