The Quest for Artificial Intelligence: A History of Ideas and Achievements

THE QUEST FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE A HISTORY OF IDEAS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Web Version Print version published by Cambridge University Press
http://www.cambridge.org/us/0521122937 
Nils J. Nilsson Stanford University

The Quest for Artificial Intelligence: A History of Ideas and Achievements is available from Cambridge University Press and from bookstores, such as Amazon.com.  (Click here to see a brief description and some reviewers' comments.)  The book is written both for the lay reader who would like to know what this field is all about and for the researcher, student, and scholar interested in the historical antecedents of current AI systems.

A free online web version of this book is available at: http://ai.stanford.edu/~nilsson/QAI/qai.pdf. Its pagination is different than that of the print version, but the web version has the advantage that its web links are clickable.

http://ai.stanford.edu/%7Enilsson/QAI/qai.pdf

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a field within computer science that is attempting to build enhanced intelligence into computer systems. This book traces the history of the subject, from the early dreams of eighteenth-century (and earlier) pioneers to the more successful work of today’s AI engineers. AI is becoming more and more a part of everyone’s life. The technology is already embedded in face-recognizing cameras, speech-recognition software, Internet search engines, and health-care robots, among other applications. The book’s many diagrams and easy-to-understand descriptions of AI programs will help the casual reader gain an understanding of how these and other AI systems actually work. Its thorough (but unobtrusive) end-of-chapter notes containing citations to important source materials will be of great use to AI scholars and researchers. This book promises to be the definitive history of a field that has captivated the imaginations of scientists, philosophers, and writers for centuries.