• Presents a rounded view of Artificial Intelligence, its history, its successes, its limitations, and its future goals
• Considers the realistic and unrealistic expectations we have placed on AI
• Shows how the results of Artificial Intelligence have been valuable in helping to understand the mental processes of memory, learning, and language for living creatures
• Explores the issues AI raises about what it means to be creative, intelligent, conscious - and human
• First published in hardback as AI: Its nature and future

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The applications of Artificial Intelligence lie all around us; in our homes, schools and offices, in our cinemas, in art galleries and - not least - on the Internet. The results of Artificial Intelligence have been invaluable to biologists, psychologists, and linguists in helping to understand the processes of memory, learning, and language from a fresh angle.

As a concept, Artificial Intelligence has fuelled and sharpened the philosophical debates concerning the nature of the mind, intelligence, and the uniqueness of human beings. In this Very Short Introduction , Margaret A. Boden reviews the philosophical and technological challenges raised by Artificial Intelligence, considering whether programs could ever be really intelligent, creative or even conscious, and shows how the pursuit of Artificial Intelligence has helped us to appreciate how human and animal minds are possible.