Ai

Ai (ā`ī), in the Bible.

1 Canaanite royal city, E of Bethel. Abraham pitched his tent there when he arrived in Canaan. It is probably the modern et-Tell, near Bethel (West Bank). Excavations have revealed a strongly fortified city situated there. Ai was in ruins at the time of Joshua's conquest. The account in chapter 7 of the Book of Joshua possibly refers instead to Bethel (1,) whose people may have used the nearby ruins of Ai as a bastion against the invading Israelites. It also appears as Hai, Aiath, and Aija.

2 City of the Ammorites, near Heshbon.

---

Ai

Town, eastern Canaan, ancient Palestine. In the Bible (Joshua 7–8), it was destroyed by the Israelites under Joshua. Biblical references agree in locating Ai just east of Bethel (modern Baytin) in the West Bank, at the Early Bronze Age site now called Al-Tall. Excavations at Ai in 1933–35 uncovered a temple of the 3rd millennium BC. The biblical events at Ai are assigned to the period c. 1400–1200 BC, when evidence indicates it was not in fact occupied; early tradition may have identified the Canaanite town under Bethel with the nearby ruins of Al-Tall.

---

(Artificial Intelligence) Devices and applications that exhibit human intelligence and behavior including robots, expert systems, voice recognition, natural and foreign language processing. It also implies the ability to learn and adapt through experience.

In the future, everything we know and think about a computer will change. By 2015, one should be able to converse with the average computer. Future systems will ask you what help you need and automatically call in the appropriate applications to help solve your problem.

An Earlier Buzzword
Years ago, the AI buzzword was very much abused as it referred to any and all advancements. However, the acid test of AI was defined in the 1940s by the English scientist, Alan Turing, who said, "A machine has artificial intelligence when there is no discernible difference between the conversation generated by the machine and that of an intelligent person." As time moves on, the AI buzzword is expected to return.

Intelligence Is Not Necessarily Artificial
The term "intelligence" refers to processing capability; therefore, every computer is intelligent. However, artificial intelligence implies human-like intelligence. An ironic twist in terminology.

Shakey the Robot

Developed in 1969 by the Stanford Research Institute, Shakey was the first fully mobile robot with artificial intelligence. Seven feet tall, Shakey was named after its rather unstable movements. (Image courtesy of The Computer History Museum, www.computerhistory.org)

---

1.		AI - artificial intelligence
2.	(networking)	ai - The country code for Anguilla.