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AI - 7 reference results

Ai Qing: see Ai Ch'ing.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

Ai Ch'ing or Ai Qing, pseud. of Chiang Hai-ch'eng or Jiang Haicheng, 1910-96, Chinese poet. After studying painting in France (1929-32), he returned to China where he wrote modernist poetry in flamboyant free verse that showed the influence of the Soviet poet Mayakovsky. He was active in Communist literary circles in the 1940s and 50s. From 1958, following the anti-intellectual campaign of 1957, until 1975, he was detained in state farms. He returned to writing poetry with the same fervent political voice found in his earlier work. He is widely regarded as one of modern China's finest poets.

See translations by E. Eoyang (1982).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

Ai, in the Bible. 1 Canaanite royal city, E of Bethel. Abraham pitched his tent there when he arrived in Canaan. It is probably the modern et-Tell, near Bethel (West Bank). Excavations have revealed a strongly fortified city situated there. Ai was in ruins at the time of Joshua's conquest. The account in chapter 7 of the Book of Joshua possibly refers instead to Bethel 1, whose people may have used the nearby ruins of Ai as a bastion against the invading Israelites. It also appears as Hai, Aiath, and Aija. 2 City of the Ammorites, near Heshbon.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

artificial intelligence (AI)

Ability of a machine to perform tasks thought to require human intelligence. Typical applications include game playing, language translation, expert systems, and robotics. Although pseudo-intelligent machinery dates back to antiquity, the first glimmerings of true intelligence awaited the development of digital computers in the 1940s. AI, or at least the semblance of intelligence, has developed in parallel with computer processing power, which appears to be the main limiting factor. Early AI projects, such as playing chess and solving mathematical problems, are now seen as trivial compared to visual pattern recognition, complex decision making, and the use of natural language. Seealso Turing test.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Amnesty International (AI)

International human-rights organization. It was founded in 1961 by Peter Benenson, a London lawyer who organized a letter-writing campaign calling for amnesty for “prisoners of conscience.” AI seeks to inform the public about violations of human rights, especially abridgments of freedom of speech and religion and the imprisonment and torture of political dissidents. It actively seeks the release of political prisoners and support of their families when necessary. Its members and supporters are said to number one million people in some 140 countries. Its first director, Sean MacBride, won the 1974 Nobel Prize for Peace; AI itself won the award in 1977.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Town, eastern Canaan, ancient Palestine. In the Bible (Joshua 7–8), it was destroyed by the Israelites under Joshua. Biblical references agree in locating Ai just east of Bethel (modern Baytīn) in the West Bank, at the Early Bronze Age site now called Al-Tall. Excavations at Ai in 1933–35 uncovered a temple of the 3rd millennium BC. The biblical events at Ai are assigned to the period circa 1400–1200 BC, when evidence indicates it was not in fact occupied; early tradition may have identified the Canaanite town under Bethel with the nearby ruins of Al-Tall.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.