The purpose of the lecture course in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is to review and analyze the role and place of AI in the framework of the scientific-technical revolution and to explain, how it performs the creative functions that are traditionally considered the prerogative of a person. During the lecture course, the history of Artificial Intelligence development, different tests of the logical character, fields of business and economy, and other sciences, where the AI is used, main scientific centers of AI, and other interesting topics will be discussed.

Discussing AI, the following definitions of artificial intelligence are given:

• Scientific direction, within the framework of which the problems of hardware or software modeling of those types of human activity that are traditionally considered to be intellectual are set and solved.

• The property of intelligent systems to perform functions (creative), which are traditionally considered the prerogative of a person. At the same time, an intelligent system is a technical or software system capable of solving problems traditionally considered creative, belonging to a specific subject area, knowledge about which is stored in the memory of such a system. The structure of an intelligent system includes three main blocks - a knowledge base, a solver, and an intelligent interface that allows you to communicate with a computer without special programs for data entry.

• Direction in computer science and information technology, the task of which is to recreate intelligent reasoning and actions using computer systems and other artificial devices.

• The ability of the system to correctly interpret external data, learn from such data and use the knowledge gained to achieve specific goals and objectives through flexible adaptation.

One of the particular definitions of intelligence, common to humans and "machines", can be formulated as follows: "Intelligence is the ability of a system to create, in the course of self-learning, programs (primarily heuristic) for solving problems of a certain class of complexity and to solve these problems."