The artificial intelligence race heats up The Japan Times

There is a tendency to see artificial intelligence as the latest technology fad, either a buzzword that canny entrepreneurs exploit or the starting point for dystopian nightmares. Both are potentially accurate descriptions of much of the discussion surrounding AI, but both miss the most important point: AI is almost certain to become the most critical feature of the digital economy, assuming a role akin to electricity in the industrial revolution. If that prediction is correct -- and few disagree -- then mastery of AI and leadership in the field could determine the future economic and military balance of power. AI is shorthand for an amalgam of computer processes that permit machines to evaluate and learn about their environment on their own. It includes automated intelligence, assisted intelligence, augmented intelligence and autonomous intelligence.