The Quartz guide to artificial intelligence: What is it, why is it important, and should we be afraid?

Why is everyone talking about it all of a sudden? If you skim online headlines, you'll likely read about how AI is powering Amazon and Google's virtual assistants, or how it's taking all the jobs (debatable), but not a good explanation of what it is (or whether the robots are going to take over). We're here to help with this living document, a plain-English guide to AI that will be updated and refined as the field evolves and important concepts emerge. Artificial intelligence is software, or a computer program, with a mechanism to learn. It then uses that knowledge to make a decision in a new situation, as humans do.