We call ourselves Homo sapiens - man the wise - because our mental capacities are so important to us. For thousands of years, we have tried to understand, predict, and manipulate a world far larger and more complicated than itself. The field of artificial intelligence, or AI, goes further still: it attempts not just to understand but also to build intelligent entities.

AI is one of the newest sciences. Work started in earnest soon after World War II, and the name itself was coined in 1956. Along with molecular biology, AI is regularly cited as the "field I would most like to be in" by scientists in other disciplines. A student in physics might reasonably feel that all the good ideas have already been taken by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and the rest. AI, on the other hand, still has openings for several full-time Einsteins.

AI currently encompasses a huge variety of subfields, ranging from general-purpose areas, such as learning and perception to such specific tasks as playing chess, proving mathematical theorems, writing poetry, and diagnosing diseases. AI systematizes and automates intellectual tasks and is therefore potentially relevant to any sphere of human intellectual activity. In this sense, it is truly a universal field.

From the textbook:
"Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach"
by Russell and Norvig.