BORN IN 1956, artificial intelligence is, demographically speaking, a Baby Boomer. And, like many of that generation, it was often inclined to overoptimism, promising more than it could deliver. The original goal of artificial intelligence a machine that could solve any problem by dint of massive, randomized trial-and-error routines was shelved when it became evident that computers of the time were not powerful enough to work that way. In the decades that followed, computers mastered simpler utilitarian tasks: Rule-based systems (also known as expert systems or knowledge-based systems) to this