What is artificial narrow intelligence (ANI)?

This article is part of Demystifying AI, a series of posts that (try to) disambiguate the jargon and myths surrounding AI. In 1956, a group of scientists led by John McCarthy, a young assistant-professor of mathematics, gathered at the Dartmouth College, NH, for an ambitious six-week project: Creating computers that could "use language, form abstractions and concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans, and improve themselves." The project kickstarted the field that has become known as artificial intelligence (AI). At the time, the scientists thought that a "2-month, 10-man study of artificial intelligence" would solve the biggest part of the AI equation. "We think that a significant advance can be made in one or more of these problems if a carefully selected group of scientists work on it together for a summer," the first AI proposal read.