The field of research that attempts to emulate human intelligence in a machine. Fields within AI include knowledge-based systems, expert systems, pattern recognition, automatic learning, natural-language understanding, robotics, and others. Commercial applications of AI are diverse, including applications in medicine, financial systems, and software designed to assist humans with impairments (voice, character recognition).
-- taken from kurzweilAI.net@

"According to weak AI, the principal value of the computer in the study of the mind is that it gives us a very powerful tool [...] According to strong AI, the computer is not merely a tool [...] rather, the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind;"
-- Searle, J.R. (1980)