Once the stuff of science fiction, AI is now a much-studied subject, with a greatly expanded scope as it incorporates developments in many (related) subjects. Some of you may be aware that there is a tremendous amount of work being done in brain research independent and part of research into neurosciences, cognitive psychology, to name but a few. Some prefer to call this area ‘machine learning’.

Whatever be the nomenclature, the last two decades have seen an enormous amount of work in AI. Interested students may read George Zarkadakis’ book ‘In our own image’ to gauge the extent and kind of work related to AI. Wherever you study, you will see the course as inherently multi-disciplinary, although the emphasis and orientation differ quite a bit.

The University of Edinburgh offers an MSc in Artificial intelligence, offering an option of full-time and part-time courses (http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees/index.php?r=site/view&id=107). In its own words, “Our research draws on neuroscience, cognitive science, linguistics, computer science, mathematics, statistics and psychology to span knowledge representation and reasoning, the study of brain processes and artificial learning systems, computer vision, mobile and assembly robotics, music perception and visualisation”. The Imperial College, London, offers an MSc in Computing (Artificial intelligence) which “focuses on artificial intelligence and knowledge engineering, as well as the development of computational and engineering models of complex cognitive and social behaviours” (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/pg/computing/artificial-intelligence/).

The Institute for Artificial Intelligence at the University of Georgia offers an MS programme as an interdisciplinary approach: “Areas of specialization include automated reasoning, cognitive modeling, neural networks, genetic algorithms, expert databases, expert systems, knowledge representation, logic programming, and natural-language processing. Microelectronics and robotics were added in 2000”. (http://www.ai.uga.edu/content/ms-artificial-intelligence). The Department of Computer Science, Cornell University offers a Masters in AI with different research groups (https://www.cs.cornell.edu/research/ai).   Many universities in Canada offers Masters in various areas grouped under AI (http://www.canadian-universities.net/Universities/Programs/Graduate-Studies-Artificial_Intelligence.html).

The University of Amsterdam offers an MSc in Artificial Intelligence with a seemingly practical focus: “Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a field that develops intelligent algorithms and machines. Examples include: self-driving cars, smart cameras, surveillance systems, robotic manufacturing, machine translations, internet searches, and product recommendations. Modern AI often involves self-learning systems that are trained on massive amounts of data (“Big Data”), and/or interacting intelligent agents that perform distributed reasoning and computation. AI connects sensors with algorithms and human-computer interfaces, and extends itself into large networks of devices” (http://gss.uva.nl/future-msc-students/information-sciences/content26/artificial-intelligence.html). The University of Groningen offers a Masters in AI with these core topics – “autonomous perceptive systems, cognitive robotics and multi-agent systems” (http://www.rug.nl/masters/artificial-intelligence/). The Australian National University offers a Master of Computing (Artificial Intelligence) (http://www.australianuniversities.com.au/course/the-australian-national-university/master-of-computing-artificial-intelligence/345/6204/australia/d/anu-345/).