(AA)AI more than the sum of its parts.(AAAI Presidential Address)(American Association for Artificial Intelligence)(Conference news)

* Recent thinking has it that AI, 25 years ago a unified field with a shared vision of creating intelligent machines, has devolved into a loosely connected set of distinct specialty areas with little communication or mutual interest between them. To the extent that this is true, it certainly appears to lessen the value of a centralized AI organization like AAAI and of traditional grand-scale AI conferences. But, I argue, the consequences are actually far worse: because of the very nature of intelligence, the centrifugal force on the field could thwart the very mission that drives it by leaving no place for the study of the interaction and synergy of the many coupled components that individually in isolation are not intelligent but, when working together, yield intelligent behavior. To raise awareness of the need to reintegrate AI, I contemplate the role of systems integration and the value and challenge of architecture. Illustrating some reason for optimism, I briefly outline some promising developments in large projects that are helping to increase the centripetal force on AI. I conclude by discussing how it is critical that the field focus its attention back on its original mission, led by a heavy dose of integrated systems thinking and grand challenges, and why after its first quarter century, AAAI is more essential than ever.

One of the privileges afforded the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) president is the chance to stand in front of the entire membership of the organization and speak in an unfiltered way about whatever he or she has on his or her mind. This is a wonderful opportunity, yet a daunting one. Since one is keenly aware of the commitment to speak very far in advance, one can muse about the speech at many odd moments over a long stretch of time. This allows the jotting of notes and the collection of meandering thoughts over quite a protracted period. But because of the sheer length of advance-warning time, it encourages one to be expansive and to note virtually anything one would like to opine about in a large forum. In my case, this freedom led to a great deal of random thinking and a fairly large pile of notes. But as the time drew near to speak, and I looked over what I had written, I found that there was almost no coherence to my many minor brainstorms. There were numerous specific things and a variety of independent research directions to consider, but no big picture. Then it occurred to me that this might actually be symptomatic of a fundamental problem that we are facing as a field and that AAAI is facing as an organization, and that the lack of a strongly unifying force might itself be a worthy theme for the address.

Between 2002 and 2005, I had the privilege of working at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in a position that is uniquely important to the history of AI: I was honored to be able to serve as director of the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO). In that role I had the opportunity to meet a very large variety of people with great ideas in all aspects of artificial intelligence and, more broadly, across all of computer science. While my ability to get into technical depth was limited by the sheer volume of conversations and visits, the breadth one sees in such a position is very hard to match in any other. The global perspective accrued through such extensive interactions with the community also afforded me the opportunity to contemplate the big picture and, perhaps more importantly (and consonant with the nature of the job at DARPA), to identify gaps in our national computing research agenda. It also occurred to me that that perspective was a very special asset to use in drafting this presidential address.

So, instead of addressing a technical topic in depth or picking on a single new direction-often the fodder for AAAI presidential addresses--I want to raise a broad issue and consider some larger questions regarding the nature of the field itself and the role that AAAI as an organization plays in AI. My hope is to encourage thinking about some things that I believe are very important to the future of the field as a whole and perhaps to start a dialogue about research directions and collaborations that in the end might bring us all back together and allow us to take advantage of the opportunity that AAAI affords all of us as AI practitioners.

A Wonderful Time to Mark Progress