For thousands of years, human have tried to understand how we think, understand, predict, and manipulate a world. The field of artificial intelligence, or AI, goes further still: it attempts not just to understand but also to build intelligent entities. The field of AI was founded on the claim that a central property of humans, intelligence can be so precisely described that it can be simulated by a machine. This raises philosophical issues about the nature of the mind and issues which have been addressed by myth, fiction and philosophy since antiquity.

Artificial intelligence is one of the newest sciences. Work started in earnest soon after World War II, and the name itself was coined in 1956.

Are there limits to how intelligent machines can be? Can a machine have a mind and consciousness? In 1950 years Alan Turing theorized that, ultimately, we can only judge the intelligence of a machine based on its behavior. This theory forms the basis of the Turing test. Hans Moravec and others have argued that it is technologically feasible to copy the brain directly into hardware and software.

Artificial intelligence has successfully been used in a wide range of fields, for example: medical diagnosis, stock trading, robot control, law, scientific discovery, video games, Web search engines and other. Frequently, when a technique reaches mainstream use, it is no longer considered artificial intelligence, sometimes described as the AI effect. Today AI encompasses a huge variety of subfields, ranging from general-purpose areas, such as planning, learning and perception to such specific tasks as the ability to move and manipulate objects, communication, playing chess, proving mathematical theorems, writing poetry, and diagnosing diseases.[/size]

Problem facing a scientists in creating intelligence has been broken down into a number of specific sub-problems. The most important are described below.

Knowledge representation. The number of atomic facts that the average person knows is astronomical. Research projects attempt to build a complete base of commonsense knowledge (e.g., Cyc).

learning.
Machine learning has been central to AI research from the beginning.

Natural language processing.
Natural language processing gives machines the ability to read and understand the languages that humans speak.

Social intelligence.
AI must be able to predict the actions of people, by understanding motives and emotional states. Also, an intelligent machine also needs to display emotions.

Manipulation and Perception.
The field of robotics is closely related to AI. Intelligence is required for robots to be able to handle such tasks as object manipulation and navigation. For this machine can use input sensors (such as cameras, microphones and other).

Also, the most important is Deduction and Reasoning, Planning, Creativity.

Most researchers hope that their work will eventually be incorporated into a machine with general intelligence (known as strong AI). It combin all the skills above and exceeding human abilities at most or all of them.

AI is a common topic in both science fiction and in projections about the future of technology and society. The potential power of the technology inspires both hopes and fears. Ray Kurzweil has used Moore's law, which describes the exponential improvement in digital technology. So, Kurzweil to calculate that desktop computers will have the same processing power as human brains by the year 2029, and that by 2045 artificial intelligence will reach a point where it is able to create improve copies themselves without people help. Writer Vernor Vinge named this point in time the "technological singularity". Edward Fredkin argues that "artificial intelligence is the next stage in evolution".

AI is a common topic in both science fiction and projections about the future of technology and society. The existence of an artificial intelligence that rivals human intelligence raises difficult ethical issues, and the potential power of the technology inspires both hopes and fears.
In fiction, AI has appeared fulfilling many roles, including a servant (R2D2 in Star Wars), a law enforcer (K.I.T.T. "Knight Rider"), a comrade (Lt. Commander Data in Star Trek), a conqueror/overlord (The Matrix), a dictator (With Folded Hands), an assassin (Terminator), a sentient race (Battlestar Galactica/Transformers), an extension to human abilities (Ghost in the Shell) and the savior of the human race (R. Daneel Olivaw in the Foundation Series).

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein considers a key issue in the ethics of artificial intelligence: if a machine can be created that has intelligence, could it also feel? If it can feel, does it have the same rights as a human? The idea also appears in modern science fiction, including the films Blade Runner and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, in which humanoid machines have the ability to feel human emotions. This issue, now known as "robot rights", is currently being considered by, for example, California's Institute for the Future, although many critics believe that the discussion is premature.

The impact of AI on society is a serious area of study for futurists. Academic sources have considered such consequences as a decreased demand for human labor, the enhancement of human ability or experience, and a need for redefinition of human identity and basic values. Andrew Kennedy, in his musing on the evolution of the human personality, considered that artificial intelligences or 'new minds' are likely to have severe personality disorders, and identifies four particular types that are likely to arise: the autistic, the collector, the ecstatic, and the victim. He suggests that they will need humans because of our superior understanding of personality and the role of the unconscious.

Several futurists argue that artificial intelligence will transcend the limits of progress. Ray Kurzweil has used Moore's law (which describes the relentless exponential improvement in digital technology with uncanny accuracy) to calculate that desktop computers will have the same processing power as human brains by the year 2029, and that by 2045 artificial intelligence will reach a point where it is able to improve itself at a rate that far exceeds anything conceivable in the past, a scenario that science fiction writer Vernor Vinge named the "technological singularity".

Robot designer Hans Moravec, cyberneticist Kevin Warwick and inventor Ray Kurzweil have predicted that humans and machines will merge in the future into cyborgs that are more capable and powerful than either. This idea, called transhumanism, which has roots in Aldous Huxley and Robert Ettinger, has been illustrated in fiction as well, for example in the manga Ghost in the Shell and the science-fiction series Dune.
Edward Fredkin argues that "artificial intelligence is the next stage in evolution," an idea first proposed by Samuel Butler's "Darwin among the Machines" (1863), and expanded upon by George Dyson in his book of the same name in 1998. Pamela McCorduck writes that all these scenarios are expressions of the ancient human desire to, as she calls it, "forge the gods".

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