hi,   
   im wondering what kind of commercial/acedamic potential will AI   
   related disciplines have compared with other areas such as nano   
   technology. Im asking this because im planning to seriously learn AI   
   related areas hoping that it will give a good return on investment.   
   im mostly is interested in :   
      
   Natural Language Processing   
   Speech Recognition / speech synthesis   
   Machine Learning and Neural Networks   
   Knowledge-Based Applications Systems   
      
   Im currently following "Speech and Language processing" book and   
   "Artificial Intelligence a modern approach" book.   
      
   i believe combined knowledge of these areas will allow me to build   
   systems that can replace humans (for example automated call centers,   
   automated flight reservation, load planing of power systems, medical   
   expert systems, etc). I know these areas are extremely hard to learn   
   and use, but i've already started learning some of them.   
      
   one reason for me to ask this questions is that, i downloaded lot of   
   AI related papers from ieee, but most of them are published in 1980 -   
   1990 period. i could not find any recent papers on them. this made me   
   think the potential of AI has dropped and there are other areas with   
   better potential in computer science? are there any such areas?   
      
   If you think AI is a good choice, what kind of tools should i learn in   
   order to build real world applications.   
   is prolog a good choice?   
      
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