Don't worry, world-leading AI expert doesn't know what AI is either

"On any shortlist I'm considered to be one of the world's leading experts on applied artificial intelligence," said JT Kostman at a NetApp breakfast in Sydney yesterday. The American's claim has substance. Kostman is a former Time Inc chief data officer, was once Samsung Electronics' chief data scientist, and says he has advised the US Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the Department of Defense on AI and analytics. But even he isn't quite sure exactly what AI is. "I don't think anybody really does know what artificial intelligence is. I'm not sure that I'm really sure, what it really means. My definition of AI, truly, I define artificial intelligence as getting computers to do stuff that they do on TV and in the movies. That's what AI really is," he says.