What Do We Mean When We Talk about Artificial Intelligence?: (Part 1)

This is a good time as any to address the more philosophical questions of what software is and how we use it, in particular software used as a replacement for human intelligence-AI. My intent in this and in the next few columns is to address some of the fundamentals, that is, the science of AI or what should be nailed-down before software engineering begins. You get more traction when you design on a solid science base of knowledge. A simple analogy, for example-one might not choose to labor over a not-quite-working perpetual-motion machine if one were aware of the second law of thermodynamics. Then again, there is no equivalent "law of human intelligence," so people keep trying.