Artificial intelligence (AI) has now mastered tasks which could, until recently, be performed only by humans. These tasks include cancer diagnosis, drug design, object recognition, speech recognition, chess, backgammon and Go, which AI systems perform at super-human levels of performance.

This richly illustrated book is a brief but comprehensive overview (without equations) of current AI systems, how they work, their applications, and their limitations. Artificial neural networks, which are the engines of AI, are introduced in the context of deep learning algorithms. After surveying the impressive capabilities of AI systems on certain tasks, the limited ability of AI to perform tasks that humans find trivial is discussed. The strengths and weaknesses of the key neural network learning algorithms employed by AI are then described. Finally, the question of whether AI systems can be intelligent is discussed, along with the controversial issue of machine consciousness. Written in an informal style, with a comprehensive Glossary and a list of Further Readings, this book represents an ideal introduction to the rapidly evolving field of AI.