Instrumental convergence is the hypothetical tendency for most sufficiently intelligent agents to pursue certain instrumental goals such as self-preservation and resource acquisition.

The intelligence explosion is a possible outcome of humanity building artificial general intelligence (AGI). AGI would be capable of recursive self-improvement leading to rapid emergence of ASI ( artificial superintelligence ), the limits of which are unknown. An intelligence explosion would be associated with a technological singularity .

A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds. "Superintelligence" may also refer to a property of problem-solving systems (e.g., superintelligent language translators or engineering assistants) whether or not these high-level intellectual competencies are embodied in agents that act in the world. A superintelligence may or may not be created by an intelligence explosion and associated with a technological singularity .

An AI takeover is a hypothetical scenario in which artificial intelligence (AI) becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, with computers or robots effectively taking control of the planet away from the human species. Possible scenarios include replacement of the entire human workforce, takeover by a superintelligent AI , and the popular notion of a robot uprising. Some public figures, such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk , have advocated research into precautionary measures to ensure future superintelligent machines remain under human control. Robot rebellions have been a major theme throughout science fiction for many decades though the scenarios dealt with by science fiction are generally very different from those of concern to scientists.

Artificial intelligence applications have been used in a wide range of fields including medical diagnosis , stock trading , robot control , law , scientific discovery and toys. However, many AI applications are not perceived as AI: "A lot of cutting edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it's not labeled AI anymore." "Many thousands of AI applications are deeply embedded in the infrastructure of every industry." In the late 1990s and early 21st century, AI technology became widely used as elements of larger systems, but the field is rarely credited for these successes.

Vehicular automation involves the use of mechatronics , artificial intelligence , and multi-agent system to assist a vehicle's operator . These features and the vehicles employing them may be labeled as intelligent or smart . A vehicle using automation for difficult tasks, especially navigation, may be referred to as semi-autonomous . A vehicle relying solely on automation is consequently referred to as robotic or autonomous . After the invention of the integrated circuit , the sophistication of automation technology increased. Manufacturers and researchers subsequently added a variety of automated functions to automobiles and other vehicles.

Symbolic artificial intelligence is the term for the collection of all methods in artificial intelligence research that are based on high-level "symbolic" (human-readable) representations of problems, logic and search . Symbolic AI was the dominant paradigm of AI research from the mid-1950s until the late 1980s.

Synthetic intelligence ( SI ) is an alternative term for artificial intelligence which emphasizes that the intelligence of machines need not be an imitation or in any way artificial; it can be a genuine form of intelligence. John Haugeland proposes an analogy with simulated diamonds and synthetic diamonds —only the synthetic diamond is truly a diamond. Synthetic means that which is produced by synthesis; combining parts to form a whole, colloquially, a man-made version of that which has arisen naturally. As defined, a "synthetic intelligence" would therefore be man-made, but not a simulation.

A friendly artificial intelligence (also friendly AI or FAI ) is a hypothetical artificial general intelligence (AGI) that would have a positive effect on humanity. It is a part of the ethics of artificial intelligence and is closely related to machine ethics . While machine ethics is concerned with how an artificially intelligent agent should behave, friendly artificial intelligence research is focused on how to practically bring about this behaviour and ensuring it is adequately constrained.

Artificial consciousness ( AC ), also known as machine consciousness ( MC ) or synthetic consciousness ( Gamez 2008 ; Reggia 2013 ), is a field related to artificial intelligence and cognitive robotics . The aim of the theory of artificial consciousness is to "Define that which would have to be synthesized were consciousness to be found in an engineered artifact" ( Aleksander 1995 ).

In the field of artificial intelligence , the most difficult problems are informally known as AI-complete or AI-hard , implying that the difficulty of these computational problems is equivalent to that of solving the central artificial intelligence problem—making computers as intelligent as people, or strong AI . To call a problem AI-complete reflects an attitude that it would not be solved by a simple specific algorithm.

Singularitarianism is a movement defined by the belief that a technological singularity —the creation of superintelligence —will likely happen in the medium future, and that deliberate action ought to be taken to ensure that the Singularity benefits humans .

Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence in the field of computer science that often uses statistical techniques to give computers the ability to "learn" (i.e., progressively improve performance on a specific task) with data , without being explicitly programmed.

Pattern recognition is a branch of machine learning that focuses on the recognition of patterns and regularities in data , although it is in some cases considered to be nearly synonymous with machine learning. Pattern recognition systems are in many cases trained from labeled "training" data ( supervised learning ), but when no labeled data are available other algorithms can be used to discover previously unknown patterns ( unsupervised learning ).

Natural language processing ( NLP ) is an area of computer science and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human (natural) languages, in particular how to program computers to process and analyze large amounts of natural language data.