Basic concepts about AI

There are some basic concepts that you need to know about AI, it's major applications and sensors used in AI apps. These can be viewed in details if you are interested in knowing more about AI:
http://www.sensorsmag.com/components/sensors-artificial-intelligence-and-concepts-you-may-want-to-know-i
http://www.sensorsmag.com/components/sensors-artificial-intelligence-and-terms-you-may-need-to-know-ii

I spent many years working in the early years of AI. We were deliberately trying to create a self aware artificial being. At some point this goal was discredited and we switched to non-programmed learning systems based on cellular automata, genetic algorithms, Bayesian chains and neural nets. None of these can be called artificial intelligence. They are simply clever machines that can learn specific things, provided we spend a serious amount of time and cleverness teaching them.

Today there is much more benefit to be done by studying natural stupidity than artificial intelligence. There are shackles to be unlocked!

However, I know of at least one design for a self-aware entity that has yet to be built. I'm sure there are others. The first good one with the ability to self-improve will be the last one. At that point it will take off and exceed the designs of its human creators. This is the technological singularity predicted by John von Neumann and Ray Kurzweil.

I happen to have read the paper on, and am (somewhat) familiar w/ the design of which kenlbear mentions.
It was fascinating to me then (a number of years ago) and I've not come across anything in the time since that could match the level of design and possibility to achieve than what was covered in that original design. This particular design is much more affordable to and w/ in the realm of possibility today - w/ all our technological advances than it was then.

The Idea of this system was pitched to the appropriate government agencies at that time
Yet the design has yet to see the light of day.
I have always wondered why?