DARPA, the USA sponsor of much AI research is quite balanced, taking risks on many different approaches to challenge problems. Robotics especially, as grounded

DARPA, the USA sponsor of much AI research is quite balanced, taking risks on many different approaches to challenge problems. Robotics especially, as grounded as it is in physical reality, employs a hierarchy of methods. Chiefly sub-symbolic at lower layers for sensors, e.g. voice recognition and visual object recognition, and symbolic in nature for higher level cognitive functions, e.g. route planning. I am glad that the AAAI accommodates all the disparate separate research fields that make up AI. With thousands of papers presented, those I enjoyed most aside from the keynotes, were those given by chairs of the specialty conferences describing what's happening in their field. Awesome things are going on - propelled by Moore's law and the contributions from every continent.