AI

Artificial intelligence, some spin it as the future boon of all mankind, others label it as the coming doom of all man kind. Imagine the good that an intelligence created by man could be. No more driving yourself, let your car do that. Your computers would be interactive, art creation could be automated, manual labor could be done by machines, international politics could be handled by humanoid ambassadors, warfare and sports could be taken over by robots. Virtually all levels of our current society would be affected. However, we as humans fear what we do not know, or understand. If we give control of our lives to an intelligence that is not our own, and potentially smarter (though can the creation grow beyond the capacity of the creator?) isn’t there a possibility, even the most remote one, of the machines realizing that we humans are the blight of this planet? I don’t want to go off on a Sci-Fi tangent, but with great power comes great responsibility, and if… when AI comes into play as a fully adaptable, and learning computer (or being?), much can and will be relegated to the computers. Let’s just hope they don’t read any Isaac Asimov (I, Robot author).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence gives the definition of the field of AI, the history and the challenges, and the successes (Deep Blue for instance).