Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged in the public debate with Deep Mind’s recent win over a champion of the Chinese game GO.  AI is all about computers getting better at solving problems formerly thought too difficult which should be left to humans.  Since the 1970s, a small group of computer specialists and mathematicians based their hopes on teaching machines to follow the rule-based learning of human reasoning.  They designed algorithms (coding these rules into software programs) which they hoped would enable computers to emulate human thought processes.