As a discipline with nearly 80 years of development, artificial intelligence (AI) has continuously expanded its boundaries and enriched its research directions. However, there remain controversies in the academic community regarding its disciplinary attributes, research core, and other fundamental issues. This paper conducted a systematic analysis of the disciplinary attributes of AI and examines its disciplinary positioning from multiple dimensions. It analyzed AI's four core goals—thinking like a human, acting like a human, thinking rationally, and acting rationally—and pointed out that AI is a methodology rather than merely a simulation of humans, serving as a new paradigm for solving complex problems. Moreover, AI has transcended the scope of traditional computer science subdisciplines. The paper emphasized that AI is a "meta−level exploration method" for science and technology, and it is currently still in the stage of "pre−paradigm science".

artificial intelligence (AI)  /  disciplinary attributes  /  computer science  /  machine learning  /  scientific paradigm