Ai

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Computer systems built to perform tasks that normally need human thinking, such as learning or reasoning ; a slow tree-dwelling sloth with three toes found in South America
2. The field of machines designed to mimic human reasoning and learning ; a South American sloth that has three claws on each forelimb and lives in the forest canopy
3. Software and machines able to carry out intelligent tasks like recognizing speech ; a sloth species native to the rainforests of South America that moves very slowly

Etymology: The word "ai" is a sloth, and its name comes from the sound the animal makes. Europeans encountered the animal in Brazil in the late seventeenth century, and the name was taken from the Old Tupi language, which was spoken by Indigenous peoples along the Brazilian coast. The Tupi name "a'y" was passed into Brazilian Portuguese as "aí," and English speakers borrowed it around 1685 to 1695, when travellers and naturalists were writing about the strange tree-dwelling animals of South America. The name is a fitting one for a creature that is famously quiet and slow. The Tupi word echoes the animal's cry, a thin, drawn-out call that gave the sloth its name in the first place.

Synonyms: three-toed sloth