This issue of AI Magazine contains the Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture paper and expanded versions of articles that discuss emerging applications from IAAI-12.

This issue of AI Magazine contains the Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture paper and expanded versions of articles that discuss emerging applications from IAAI-12.

Every year, AI Magazine devotes one fourth of its annual production to a special issue based on the Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence conference. Because IAAI is the premier venue for documenting the transition of AI technology into application, these special issues provide a snapshot of the state of the art in AI with the practical syllogism in mind; they present work that has value because it delivers value in use.

As a result, it is good to read these articles from a practical perspective. Papers that document deployed systems clarify the motivating application constraints, the match (and mismatch) between problems and technology, the innovations required to surmount barriers to deployment, and the impact of technology on application through practical measures of cost and benefit. Other articles describe applications that are almost feasible, drawn from papers in the IAAI emergent applications track. These papers provide a window into the search for viable applications at an earlier stage in the process of mating task with technology. All of the articles supply insight into the core question of what is feasible and why, which is a useful lens for us, as readers, to employ in viewing our own work. This special issue of AI Magazine contains expanded versions of five papers that describe deployed applications and two papers that discuss emergent applications from IAAI-11 (the article by Warrick and colleagues is from IAAI-10).