Abstract

As we enter the second 50 years of AI's history, it's clear that many deep and challenging puzzles still remain before we can realize AI's full promise. Indeed, we don't really understand yet whether AI systems will ultimately be based on mathematics or biological models, learned or engineered. Thus, AI's future depends critically on its ability to attract the brightest new researchers-young people with broad knowledge and insight, great creativity, prodigious systems-building abilities, management skills, and the charisma to inspire generations of future graduate students. We envisioned the lEEE lntelligent Systems 10 to Watch award as a way to recognize new researchers' promise and early accomplishments, as well as to inspire those pursuing AI research in graduate school or still deciding whether to choose Al as their research specialty.
We didn't know what to expect in response to the call for nominations, but we entered into this hoping for a respectable response. As it turns out, we needn't have worried. We received more than 50 nominations, and they're a most impressive group. The selection committee was truly inspired by the quality, accomplishments, diversity, and depth of this remarkable group of young men and women. It wasn't easy to narrow the list to only 10, but we think that you too will be impressed by th winners. They represent many subspecialties, many approaches, and many countries. Our hearty congratulations to all!
On a final, sad note: one of our winners, Push Singh, died shortly after being selected. He is memorialized by Jim Hendler separately in this issue, on page 15.