(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…