Approaches to Artificial Intelligence

The field of artificial intelligence (AI) has as its goal the development of machines that can perceive, reason, communicate, and act in complex environments much like humans can, or possibly even better than humans can. Even though the field has produced some practically useful machines with rudiments of these abilities, it is generally conceded that the ultimate goal is still distant. That being so, there is much discussion and argument about what are the best approaches for AI-best in the sense of laying the core foundations for achieving ultimate goals as well as best in the sense of producing practically useful shorter term results. Thus, a number of different paradigms have emerged over the past thirty-five years or so. Each has its ardent advocates, and some have produced sufficiently many interesting results so as not to be dismissable out of hand. Perhaps combinations of these approaches will be required. In any case, the advocates of these approaches often feel that theirs is the ``breakthrough'' methodology that deserves special support.