Artificial Intelligence

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8 A revision of Computers that Think? (Enslow, 1982), this book presents an upbeat, optimistic overview for beginners. However, little more than ten per cent of this revision represents new material. A general introduction to AI research with examples of what has been accomplished and varying definitions of intelligence as the term applies to automation are included, as are passages on binary processing, the history of computers, robots, equipping computers with sight, speech and hearing, reading comprehension of computers, expert systems, and the debate over human control of computer systems. Most of the revision is accomplished through an essentially new first chapter and new closings for each of the other chapters; most illustrations have been carried over from the original, with fewer than ten new pictures replacing the handful that have been dropped. Although her text is readable, Hyde is too glib in her presentation of AI research and does not explain the problems involved or the potential for failure as well as Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's The Quest for Artificial Intelligence (HBJ, 1986). While Artificial Intelligence is suitable as a basic introduction to the field, libraries that already own Computers that Think? will find the original adequate and will be better off purchasing Patent's book. Jeffrey A. French, Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Lib .