填空题 Fashions come and go quickly in technology. Five years ago artificial intelligence (AI) was supposed to be the computer industry"s next entrepreneurial pot of gold. Today many of the firms struggling to 1 in the young AI industry predict its imminent disappearance. They may 2 be right. The irony is that their technology has never been more popular.
Artificial intelligence is the name given to computer techniques which make 3 think more like people. 4 techniques enable computers at Reuters to classify the news stories speeding 5 its wires so that, say, a commodity dealer does not have to wade 6 a heap of stories about corporate finance to find the news that interests him most. AI techniques also help auditors monitor foreign-exchange risks 7 Manufacturers Hanover Bank. They plan production at Ford and Boeing. And they help maintenance workers at New York city"s electric utility distinguish false 8 from real power failures.
Such successes are inspiring, but they have not made AI companies rich. That is because, 9 necessary, AI is only one, relative small element in the computer systems 10 to solve intricate business problems.
Fuelled by eager venture capitalists, the first generation 11 AI companies sprang from university labs in the mid-1980s. AI software companies are now trying to make 12 easier for every body to create blends of AI and conventional computing. AI technology will become another computer tool, so 13 used as to be virtually indistinguishable 14 other types of software. Some of today"s AI companies will vanish because they have merged 15 the industry"s mainstream. Others will simply vanish.