What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence is intelligence exhibited by machines or software, and it is also the scientific field dedicated to building computers capable of intelligent behavior. The landscape now includes public sector policies, laws, and governance frameworks designed to regulate and promote the technology. Meanwhile, practical challenges like AI hallucinations—where models present false information as fact—continue to affect reliability in high-stakes scenarios.

What we know

• Artificial intelligence is intelligence exhibited by machines or software, and represents the scientific field studying how to create software capable of intelligent behavior. [3]
• The regulation of artificial intelligence involves developing public sector policies and laws to promote and regulate AI across global jurisdictions. [2]
• The European Union adopted a common legal framework for artificial intelligence through the AI Act in 2024. [2]
• An artificial intelligence hallucination is a response containing false or misleading information generated by AI and presented as fact. [5]

Still open

• Terms like trustworthy AI, responsible AI, and ethical AI have shifted in meaning over time and are frequently used interchangeably.

Where to go next

• a case in pointHow does the European Union AI Act regulate technology?
• how it workedWhy do large language models generate hallucinations?
• the bigger pictureWhat is AI governance?
• whenWhat events occurred in artificial intelligence in 2026?
• compared withHow do symbolic AI models differ from large language models?
• an unexpected connectionWhy do some statisticians object to the term AI hallucination?Some software engineers and statisticians criticize the term AI hallucination because they argue it unreasonably anthropomorphizes computers by drawing a loose analogy to human psychology.

Sources

• [1]regulation of artificial intelligence (Wikidata Q96482266) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Regulation of artificial intelligence · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Outline of artificial intelligence · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]2026 in artificial intelligence · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Hallucination (artificial intelligence) · CC BY-SA 4.0