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All the process of evolution does is try everything till something works better then something else. This is how we learn we take some thing that works and try small variations to try and find improvements. If no improvement is found, we go back to the previous generation of idea. Also when there is stagnation in this evolving process we go back to the drawing board and try something complete new based off the lessons learn with the technique we’re trying to improve and other areas that are somewhat related.

AI should not be about Artificial Intelligence but Applied Intelligence. We can get computers to do amazing things look at some of the computer games mentioned by other posters. In terms of Learning System these are hacks, but they do the job required and that’s the whole point of Intelligence to do what is required. Do we need computers to study philosophy and the nature of existence? Or just to make thinking less of a requirement for the human species? Human creativity comes from your ability to see and relate abstract ideas together. Object Orientated Programming languages are going down this root of development also. If a computer can be given more inputs a.k.a senses akin to our own, it will learn to relate it self to these objects based on its interaction. The biggest barrier to AI is interaction with object either physical or virtual. The Computer AI needs to live in an environment in which it can manipulate objects and get feed back from such interaction to fuel the evolutionary process of learning from experiments. A brain without a body is useless. But there also needs to be an underlying goal for the AI, like a need to survive, a will to survive. A bit of code that ensures that “death” is a really bad thing. That being the only criteria to selection it should then be allowed free unrestrained access to the world in which it will exist, again either virtual or real. I think computer games and these virtual meta-universes are going to be the birthplace of AI not in some dusty lab. The lab may produce some interesting pieces of maths like Game Theory, but you still need a Game in which to play them!