Artificial Intelligence: What Will They Think of Next?

This paper explores several points regarding the development of the field of artificial intelligence and its potential impact on library science. The discussion is motivated by the nature of future library collections and services that will be made available (in part) through artificial intelligence applications and by the basic need for intelligent analysis of the vast volumes of data and information that will be available through continuing developments in storage and communication technology. The general concept of intelligence is shown to involve a number of more specific types of thinking, and dimensions and objects of thought, and several examples of current research areas concerned with these more specific problems are described. A general fieldwide dialectic between research oriented towards these specific problems and research oriented towards the integration of these specific capabilities into broader systems is described and related to the general question of improving the capabilities of interactive intelligent systems. These issues are discussed in the context of several definitions of intelligence and artificial intelligence and are illustrated in the example of a specific system.published or submitted for publicatio