AAAI

What AAAI is

AAAI, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, is an international scientific society devoted to promoting research in, and the responsible use of, artificial intelligence^[1]. In its own description it calls itself a nonprofit scientific society devoted to advancing the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines^[2]. Those two formulations point at the same thing from different angles: the organisation exists both to support the people who build intelligent systems and to think about how those systems are used.

Origins and the name

The association was founded in 1979 under the name American Association for Artificial Intelligence^[1][2]. It kept that name for decades, then changed it in 2007 to Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence^[1]. The change kept the familiar four-letter acronym while dropping the national framing, which fits an organisation that describes itself as international.

The early history of the society is usually told through the people who presided over it rather than through a single founding president. Among those who led it in that period were Allen Newell, Edward Feigenbaum, Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy^[1]. Wikipedia notes that the society was presided over by several notable computer scientists in its early history rather than naming a single first president^[1].

What it does

The association's stated goals are to promote research in and responsible use of artificial intelligence, to increase public understanding of artificial intelligence, and to improve the teaching and training of AI practitioners^[2]. Its listed activities follow from those goals: organising and sponsoring conferences, symposia and workshops; publishing a quarterly magazine; and publishing proceedings, including those of the annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence^[2].

The AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence is considered one of the top conferences in the field^[1]. The magazine has been published continuously since 1980^[1], which makes it one of the longer-running periodicals in the area. The organisation is also associated with a wider set of meetings: Wikipedia lists AIES, AIIDE, ICWSM, IAAI, HCOMP and the KDD conferences among them^[1]. These cover quite different ground, from human computation and web and social media research to applied AI and AI in interactive digital entertainment.

Leadership

Francesca Rossi has served as president since July 2022, and was to serve until July 2024, when president-elect Stephen Smith would begin his term^[1]. The arrangement, in which a president-elect waits in line before taking office, is a common way for learned societies to keep continuity between administrations.

Where it sits in the field

A scientific society is not a lab and does not build systems itself. Its influence runs through the things it convenes and publishes: the annual conference where results are presented, the workshops where smaller and newer topics get a hearing, and the magazine where the field talks to itself and to readers outside it. For artificial intelligence, an organisation that has been running a conference and a magazine since the years when the field was far smaller has served as one of the places where the research community defines what counts as a result worth reporting.

The two halves of the stated purpose — promoting research and promoting responsible use — sit side by side in the association's own description^[1][2]. That pairing is worth noticing: the organisation presents the technical work and the question of how the technology is used as parts of the same mission rather than as separate concerns.