section_path: Philosophy/Evaluating approaches to AI/Soft vs. hard computing
section_name: Soft vs. hard computing
paragraph_text: Soft vs. hard computing
  
  Finding a provably correct or optimal solution is intractable for many important problems. Soft computing is a set of techniques, including genetic algorithms, fuzzy logic and neural networks, that are tolerant of imprecision, uncertainty, partial truth and approximation. Soft computing was introduced in the late 1980s and most successful AI programs in the 21st century are examples of soft computing with neural networks.