What Makes Ai So Interesting

What makes it not interesting? The “thinking machine” drean has fascinated philosophers, machinists, and scientists for centuries. While there are many interpretations of the scope and focus of “artificial intelligence”, I take it to denote “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines”.¹ A definitive example would be a computer program that controls a computer. Such a program, if capable of generalizing to new problems in a similar way as humans do, would dramatically reduce the cost of intellectual capital and offer a partial solution to greese the wheels of beaurucratic machinery, thereby accelerating progress in science, technology, medicine, business, and other pillars of modern human society. However there are many more classes of problems to solve outside of language. “Artificial intelligence” is often an umbrella term for all the intellectual ‘power tools’ like programming which we humans have developed. Likely, you can identify other situations where an artificial extension to your intelligence is advantageous. I aim to make this resource available to as many as possible by informing others about and contributing to its development.