The vision of AI collaborators is a staple of mythology and science fiction, where artificial agents with special talents assist human partners and teams. In this dream, sophisticated AIs understand nuances of collaboration and human communication. The AI as collaborator dream is different from computer tools that augment human intelligence (IA) or intermediate human collaboration. Such tools have their roots in the 1960s and helped to drive an information technology revolution. They can be useful but they are not intelligent and do not collaborate as effectively as skilled people. With the increase of hybrid and remote work since the COVID pandemic, the benefits and requirements for better coordination, collaboration, and communication are becoming a hot topic in the workplace. Employers and workers face choices and trade-offs as they negotiate the options for working from home versus working at the office. Many factors such as the high costs of homes near employers are impeding a mass return to the office. Government advisory groups and leaders in AI have advocated for years that AIs should be transparent and effective collaborators. Nonetheless, robust AIs that collaborate like talented people remain out of reach. Are AI teammates part of a solution? How artificially intelligent (AI) could and should they be? This position paper reviews the arc of technology and public calls for human-machine teaming. It draws on earlier research in psychology and the social sciences about what human-like collaboration requires. This paper sets a context for a second science-driven paper that advocates a radical shift in technology and methodology for creating resilient, intelligent, and human-compatible AIs (Stefik & Price, 2023). The aspirational goal is that such AIs would learn, share what they learn, and collaborate to achieve high capabilities.

This article, derived from the 1996 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Presidential Address, explores the notion of intelligence from a variety of perspectives and finds that it "are" many things. It has, for example, been interpreted in a variety of ways even within our own field, ranging from the logical view (intelligence as part of mathematical logic) to the psychological view (intelligence as an empirical phenomenon of the natural world) to a variety of others. One goal of this article is to go back to basics, reviewing the things that we, individually and collectively, have taken as given, in part because we have taken multiple different and sometimes inconsistent things for granted. I believe it will prove useful to expose the tacit assumptions, models, and metaphors that we carry around as a way of understanding both what we're about and why we sometimes seem to be at odds with one another. Intelligence are also many things in the sense that is a product of evolution.

During their term of office, each AAAI President is invited to deliver a presidential address to the AI community. Traditionally, this address has been delivered at the AAAI National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, and, in recent years, the addresses have been published in AI Magazine. As a service to the community, AI Magazine is collecting these articles and making them available (in PDF format) to the scientific community at large.

Twenty-five years ago I had a dream, a daydream, if you will. A dream shared with many of you. I dreamed of a special kind of computer, which had eyes and ears and arms and legs, in addition to its "brain." I did not dream that this new computer friend would be a means of making money for me or my employer or a help for my country - though I loved my country then and still do, and I have no objection to making money. I did not even dream of such a worthy cause as helping the poor and handicapped of the world using this marvelous new machine. No, my dream was filled with the wild excitement of seeing a machine act like a human being, at least in many ways.

AAAI Presidential Address. A classic article describing the differences in viewing computer programs at the symbol level or the knowledge level. "This is the first presidential address of AAAI, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. In the grand scheme of history of artificial intelligence (AI), this is surely a minor event. The field this scientific society represents has been thriving for quite some time. No doubt the society itself will make solid contributions to the health of our field. But it is too much to expect a presidential address to have a major impact. So what is the role of the presidential address and what is the significance of the first one? I believe its role is to set a tone, to provide an emphasis. I think the role of the first address is to take a stand about what that tone and emphasis should be-set expectations for future addresses and to communicate to my fellow presidents. Only two foci are really possible for a presidential address: the state of the society or the state of the science. I believe the latter to be correct focus. AAAI itself, its nature and its relationship to the larger society that surrounds it, are surely important. However, our main business is to help AI become a science -- albeit a science with a strong engineering flavor. Thus, though a president's address cannot be narrow or highly technical, it can certainly address a substantive issue. That is what I propose to do." AI Magazine 2(2): Summer 1981, 1-20, 33.