ABSTRACT
Artificial intelligence is based on the principle that human intelligence can be defined so that a machine can easily imitate it and execute simple and even complex tasks. Hence, the goals of artificial intelligence include imitating human cognitive activity. Researchers and developers are making rapid strides in simulating activities, such as learning, reasoning, and perception, to the extent that these can be fully defined. This chapter presents artificial intelligence as a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments. It describes weak and strong artificial intelligence and explains how neural networks, machine- and deep-learning form different subfields of artificial intelligence, with a special focus on geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI). The chapter concludes by outlining the future of artificial intelligence.
