With or without human-level intelligence -- AI has finally come of age

"We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten" -- Bill Gates. When I started working in AI, some 30 years ago, it was virtually unknown -- very few had heard of AI. Nowadays, I rarely meet anyone who has not heard of AI. Hardly a week now passes without major announcements on AI technology – such as that being used in driverless cars, robotics, and other innovate uses. Yet, AI is hardly new. Indeed, the term AI was first coined at the Dartmouth Conference in 1956 – 0ver 60 years ago.