What is AI?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to “the simulation of human intelligence by a system or a machine” (Xu et al., 2021). The goal of AI is to develop a machine that can think like humans and mimic human behaviors, such as perceiving, reasoning, learning, planning, predicting, and so on. The term AI was coined by John McCarthy in 1956 at a conference at Dartmouth College, which marked the birth of the AI research field (Toosi et al., 2022). Since then, AI has gone through several periods of progress and stagnation, known as summers and winters, depending on the availability of funding, data, and computing power. Some of the milestones of AI include the development of logic-based systems, expert systems, neural networks, natural language processing, computer vision, speech recognition, machine learning, and deep learning. Today, AI is widely used in various domains and applications that affect our daily lives. For example, AI powers the face ID feature on our smartphones that allows us to unlock our devices with biometrics. AI also enables smart assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana to understand our voice commands and provide us with information and services. AI also helps us find relevant information on the web using search engines like Google and Bing that use sophisticated algorithms to rank and display results. AI also affects our preferences and decisions by making individualized recommendations for us on e-commerce websites like Amazon and Netflix as well as social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Along with changing individual industries, AI is also enhancing consumer experience, enhancing decision-making, and opening new prospects. For instance, AI is used in healthcare to identify illnesses, recommend treatments, track patients' states, and find novel medications. To give pupils adaptable learning alternatives, evaluate their performance, and provide feedback, AI is also applied in education. In cybersecurity, AI is also used to spot vulnerabilities, stop malicious attacks, and respond to incidents. AI is also used in entertainment to create realistic graphics, animations, and sounds for games and movies (Daley, 2023). In summary, AI is a powerful paradigm for scientific research that has a profound impact on various aspects of our society and culture. As AI continues to evolve and advance, it will offer more benefits and challenges for humanity.