Narrow AI
AI systems designed and trained for a specific task or narrow set of tasks. All current AI systems are narrow AI — they excel in their domain but cannot generalize outside it.
Why It Matters
Narrow AI is what exists today and what powers all current AI applications. Understanding its limitations prevents over-reliance and misplaced expectations.
Example
AlphaGo can defeat world champions at Go but cannot play checkers, hold a conversation, or make a sandwich — it is brilliant within its narrow domain and useless outside it.
Think of it like...
Like a world-class concert pianist who cannot change a tire — extraordinary skill in one area does not mean capability in others.
Related Terms
Artificial General Intelligence
A hypothetical AI system with human-level cognitive abilities across all domains — able to reason, learn, plan, and understand any intellectual task that a human can. AGI does not yet exist.
Artificial Intelligence
The broad field of computer science focused on creating systems capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. This includes learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and language understanding.