This concise guide explains the history, theory, potential, application, and limitations of Artificial Intelligence. Boden shows how research into AI has shed light on the working of human and animal minds, and she considers the philosophical challenges AI raises: could programs ever be really intelligent, creative or even conscious?

• 1: What is Artificial Intelligence?


• 2: Generality as the Holy Grail


• 3: Language, Creativity, Emotion


• 4: Artificial Neural Networks


• 5: Robots and Artificial Life


• 6: But is it Intelligence, Really?


• 7: The Singularity


• Further Reading


• Index

Margaret Boden, OBE, is Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex, and one of the best known figures in the field of Artificial Intelligence. She has written extensively on the subject, most recently the two-volume work Mind as Machine: a history of cognitive science (2006). She has lectured widely, to both specialist and general audiences across the world, and has appeared on many radio and TV programmes, in the UK and elsewhere. She was awarded an OBE in 2001 for 'services to cognitive science.'