What Is Artificial Intelligence?

As we previously reported, artificial intelligence (AI) is not some Asimovian fantasy, nor an extravagance best left to starch-smocked scientists clinking beakers together in an underground laboratory. It is an opportunity to create tools that save money, save lives and improve life in ways that can't be measured. Stated very simply, AI is the name given to computer systems that attempt to replicate human intelligence and learning. There's great difficulty in finding a satisfying definition for AI because the definition of intelligence itself conjures big questions of consciousness and being that have not yet been resolved by science and philosophy. A practical way to approach AI is to consider why it exists in its current manifestations.