Why artificial intelligence isn’t intelligent

Misconceptions of the name fuel a hype that can never be met. The phenomenon known as 'AI winters' - "in which funding and support for the field dried up" - happens when excitement and confusion around the type of things that artificially intelligent computers can actually do blow expectations out of realistic proportions. It happened in the 70s, 80s and it may as well be the case today. Here, Christopher Mims explains why "these claims can spur big rounds of investment and mislead the public and policymakers who must decide how to prepare national economies for new innovations," and how a change of terminology is the key to preventing further AI winters from happening.