The applications of Artificial Intelligence lie all around us in our homes schools and offices in our cinemas in art galleries and not least on the Internet The results of Artificial Intelligence have been invaluable to biologists psychologists and linguists in helping to understand the processes of memory learning and language from a fresh angle As a concept Artificial Intelligence has fuelled and sharpened the philosophical debates concerning the nature of the mind intelligence and the uniqueness of human beings Margaret A Boden reviews the philosophical and technological challenges raised by Artificial Intelligence considering whether programs could ever be really intelligent creative or even conscious and shows how the pursuit of Artificial Intelligence has helped us to appreciate how human and animal minds are possible