Artificial Intelligence is a big field which encompasses logic, probability, and mathematics; perception, reasoning, learning, and action; and everything from micro-economic devices to robotic planetary explorers.

We define AI as a study of agents that receive percepts from the environment and perform actions. Each such agent implements a agent function that maps percepts sequence to actions, and we see different ways to represent these functions in various task environments. We explain the role of learning as extending the reach of designer into unknown environments and stress the importance of the task environment in determining the appropriate agent design. The unifying theme is the idea of "Intelligent Agent".

The only prerequisite is familiarity with basic concepts of computer science (algorithms, data structures, complexity).

Our ultimate objective is to make programs that learn from their experience as effectively as humans do. We shall…say that a program has common sense if it automatically deduces for itself a sufficient wide class of immediate consequences of anything it is told and what it already knows.

JOHN MCCARTHY, "Programs with Common Sense", 1958