The story of artificial intelligence

The Search For Artificial Intelligence In the pale light of a laboratory, a white humanoid quietly contemplates a series of objects. A toy car is held up. "Toy car," the robot says, with barely a pause. For decades, the concept of a machine that could not only recognise objects, but could also be taught to learn the shapes and distinctive features of new ones, was the preserve of SF writers like Isaac Asimov. But in 2005, fiction became a reality when Japanese scientists created Asimo (an acronym which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative MObility), a plastic-shelled humanoid standing some four feet tall and capable of recognising objects, faces, hand gestures and speech.