Toward the third generation of artificial intelligence

Abstract

There have been two competing paradigms of artificial intelligence (AI) development since 1956, i.e., symbolism and connectionism (or subsymbolism). Both started at the same time, but symbolism had dominated AI development until the end of the 1980s. Connectionism began to develop in the 1990s and reached its climax at the beginning of this century, and it is likely to displace symbolism. Today, it seems that the two paradigms only simulate the human mind (or brain) in different ways and have their own advantages. True human intelligence cannot be achieved by relying on only one paradigm. Both are necessary to establish a new, explainable, and robust AI theory and method and develop safe, trustworthy, reliable, and extensible AI technology. To this end, it is imperative to combine the two paradigms, and the present article will illustrate this idea. For the sake of description, symbolism, connectionism, and the newly developed paradigm are termed as first-, second-, and third-generation AIs.