Coined by Stanford University Professor John McCarthy, AI in recent years has been applied to games-playing programming (by making computers play chess and checkers), expert-systems programming (by making computers help doctors diagnose diseases based on symptoms cited), natural language-programming (by making computers understand natural human languages), neural network-programming (by making computers simulate intelligence by attempting to reproduce various types of physical connections occurring in animal and human brains), and robotic programming (by making computers see, hear, and react to various sensory stimuli).

To date, no computer is able to exhibit “full AI,” that is, fully simulating human behavior. The two most common programming languages used for AI activities are LISP and Prolog.

See Also: Computer; Programming Languages C, C++, Perl, and Java.