Spring COMES TO AI WINTER.

There is no precise definition of artificial intelligence (IA) but broadly, it's a field that attempts to provide machines with humanlike reasoning and language-processing capabilities. This article reports that researchers are now emerging from what has been called an "AI winter" with renewed interest in the biology of the brain and research honed to practical applications in medicine, customer service, manufacturing, education and other areas. It describes the useful application of the Intelligence Distribution Agent, developed for the U.S. Navy, and its anticipated use in performing jobs such as negotiating with humans in unstructured English and making decisions by looking up data.