How to create artificial intelligence in your spare time

One of the most popular futurist hobbyhorses is the idea that artificially intelligent machines will soon become ubiquitous and change the world forever. This is an old dream, which may have started with Isaac Asimov's idea that superintelligent computers would take over the geo-political management of Earth (see the final story in I, Robot) and create a more rational world. Early computer geeks like Alan Turing imagined that AI would simply be a perfected human brain, sentient but far more powerful and capable of solving problems humans can't. Most scientists and futurists agree that true AI has the potential to create a better world, but what can you put on your to-do list today that will help make AI a reality in fifty years? Actually, there's quite a lot.