What is artificial intelligence? NYT 6feb2011 Richard Powers

This op ed piece was written before Watson's appearance on Jeopardy. While Jeopardy did offer a great challenge to artificial intelligence, I think comedy will up the stakes. When a computer can do what John Steward or Stephen Colbert do with the daily news, I'll really be impressed. Until then I'll be inclined to view it as an exploration into how the human mind assimilate such a large disparate collection of information for efficient retrieval. Intelligence is the adaption to a changing environment. The news changes every day and to remain funny requires skills that I don't think we have any inkling of yet.