In this first message to the members of AAAI, AAAI President Allen Newell answers the questions "what are we?" "why did we come into existence?" "how will AAAI conduct itself?" and ends with a few thoughts on the name "artificial intelligence." According to some, births are always traumatic--a shock to come from the womb to the world. The birth we give witness to here is that of a new society, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence--AAAI. It has not seemed to me traumatic, but rather almost wholly benign.

This article reprints a section of the January 1980 "Chairman's Message" of the SIGART Newsletter (No. 69). SIGART is the Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence, of the Association for Computing Machinery. At the time of AAAI's formation, SIGART, with its 3,800 members, was the principal AI organization in the United States, and its primary activity was publishing the Newsletter. The field of AI is mature enough that a national scientific organization is needed. Much of the immediate motivation for forming AAAI came from a growing sentiment within the U.S. AI community for a regularly-scheduled national conference.

This article reprints a section of the January 1980 "Chairman's Message" of the SIGART Newsletter (No. 69). SIGART is the Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence, of the Association for Computing Machinery. At the time of AAAI's formation, SIGART, with its 3,800 members, was the principal AI organization in the United States, and its primary activity was publishing the "Newsletter.